Hotel Orquidea, Gran Canaria.
First the place. Like I said last year if you have kids then Hotel Orquidea is fantastic. The entertainment is great, the pool activities are good, the team there are energetic and work well together. The local precinct is safe and while it’s pretty mundane if you are after lots of bright lights and discos it does suit a tired family at the end of the day.
The hotel has had a serious amount of money thrown at it. The entertainment area has been moved slightly, the pools redone, many trees chopped down (compare in the galleries below), the main staircase changed, ramps inserted (see below), the front of the building changed, the entertainment poolside area removed and other small changes. Big improvement if you can (1) walk and (2) have no buggy.

Food. Unimaginative (as last year) but lots of it, all fresh, hot food cooked in view.

The building. The hotel was still being upgraded when we arrived. After 4 days of building starting at 7:30am, fumes dust and rubble we complained at which point they stopped. We were actually the only people on floor 4 for the first week as that was the one being done.

Lifts. They have 3 for 11 floors. They broke a couple of times when we were there but were fixed pretty quickly. All 3 now fit a wheelchair. Of course this does not stop people hogging the lift because they can’t be bothered to go up using the stairs to the first floor. But the lifts are a definite improvement on last year.

Disabled access. Room 407 is the disabled room. The bathroom has a ‘wet area’. This meant J could have her first unassisted shower in what seems like forever. It lacks some handrails and the floor tiles could be rougher but it was good. It does not have a view other than horizontal from the balcony. You cannot see down to the pools. entertainment or anything else with the hotel. (I could by standing carefully on the balcony wall). That side of the hotel was also above the main stage so if you want early nights ask for a room with a high number. 407 is also the room furthest from the lifts so while a wheelchair is okay if you have difficulty walking and no chair it’ll be very hard work.

Staff. I’m really picky but no-one could be faulted at all for any reason.

So for all the above the holiday was excellent but because J uses a wheelchair there were a couple of pretty big drawbacks.
The first was the ramps. They were steep, had corners and at the top there was no curved drop between the ramp and floor tiles on the side, just a sharp corner. This last item is no huge problem going down a ramp but it when you go up. So to go into the restaurant last year the ramp was alongside the main steps. Short but easily used. This year you have to go through a doorway to the left, turn tightly right, down, turn tightly left, off. There is just enough room with a normal wheelchair if the feet do not protrude from the footrests. Going down is bad enough but going up was worse. Definitely a bad design and one that would not pass in the UK. The main ramp in Reception had exactly the same problems. There was one curved ramp at the end of reception that was slightly better but it had no rail.
The ramp to the toilet nearest the pool had also been curved and had no flat area at the top to easily turn into the toilets. Someone in a wheelchair probably feels bad about having to be pushed but making it feel like an obstacle course makes that worse.
The second problem was the entertainment area. Last year it was pretty open on all sides. We would sit at the back and could leave by going out the side and around the pools. This year for some reason there is a wall around the whole area. There was one way in just to the left of the stage at the front. This forced us to sit at the front because otherwise we would have had to disturb many people trying to get out (saying “Excuse me” and “Thanks” gets boring very fast). So we had to sit in the same area for almost the whole holiday. This wasn’t good, we couldn’t sit in the centre, we couldn’t get more than 20 feet away from a huge speaker. I know someone has to sit there but their lesson is to get there earlier the next night and we had no choice. This wall is a bad idea.
(There are ramps in the precinct outside but we knew about those and their only problem is people being on them and not understanding why we would want them to shift).

One thing we did notice – the first and second times we went the place was just about 100% english. This year there were many other nationalities including germans, poles and what we think were russians. No big deal but if the holiday is sold as being all english that’s not true. And sunbeds? 6:45am beat the rush every day :)

So will we go next year? No. And it’s only because the girls are now too old. At 17/14 once the day activities are complete there isn’t a whole lot to do. They could get a taxi to the next town for the clubs etc but they didn’t feel comfortable doing that and we couldn’t go with them.

Tips:
1. The Holidays bar along with Sweet Dreams and Broken Dreams are all excellent. Sweet Dreams has free wifi if you are drinking their drinks (just ask for the password).
2. Despite the reps saying it is 3? to the next town it is actually 6?.
3. You cannot now buy antibiotics, you need a prescription. It cost us over ?150 when P had an ear infection for the Dr, taxi, prescription. There is no pharmacist close to the hotel – you need a taxi.
4. There are 2 electronics shops. They will rob you. Conmen, all of them.
5. The hotel has internet as does an arcade in the the precinct.
6. Nowhere sold books. And the only place to buy a newspaper was a trek up the hill to the orange hotel (see gallery).
7. Red Bull is 4? in the hotel, ?1.50 in the shops.
5. There is a Swatch stockist at the airport (I think it’s important anyway)

There are 2 galleries here from last year and this. (There are some protected galleries there. Just ask if you want to see them – you probably have an idea if I’ll say yes).