Riu Garoe

This hotel is restful and peaceful and, in our opinion, more geared for couples looking for a quality & tranquil atmosphere. Yes, the hotel is beautifully situated in the up market La Paz area. It is not in the centre of town. However, for us, this simply adds to it’s appeal. The RIU Garoe is First Class and it has simply the best and most caring and wonderful staff in the hospitality business in the lush & beautiful north of Tenerife, which is a million miles away from the much busier and over developed tourist area’s of the south. Come here to chill, relax and be pampered. It’s great for the soul and you’ll come home recharged. We can’t wait for our next visit. Thanks to all the team at the Garoe from Director Hernandez Garcia to Head’s of Departments to all personnel. You are amazing and keep up your fantastic work. See you soon.

The infection control is good with staff working tirelessly hard to clean and sanitise frequently.

The spa (at an additional charge) is recently reopened following Covid closures and it’s very beautiful, large and modern, i had the best ever deep tissue massage.

The inside bar and stage area is chic and laid back with outside patio heaters and a decent program of nightly entertainment (flamenco, pianists, cabaret singers) the cocktails are expertly made, delicious and reasonably priced (and powerful!) the bar staff and waitresses are a delight.

NEGATIVE POINTS

There is a strong overall majority of a single nationality guest (German) They are, in my opinion, generally different from English guests in that they were very serious, stared at the few English guests and were rude in the restaurant when queuing for food stations. English guests will find their general demeanour and lack of warmth difficult, it was surreal for me to not seeing happy smiley faces enjoying their holidays and interacting with different nationalities.

THE POOL IS FREEZING despite being told it was heated to 25 degrees. Most guests found it too uncomfortable to use which is a major disappointment. We also saw four separate accidents around the pool side where adults were slipping on the extremely slippery tiles. Considering the average age of guests that the hotel caters to (50+) using high slip tiles doesn’t make any sense.

There was no boxes of disposable gloves and hand sanitizers at the buffet self-service for guests to use (optionally) and so all the other stringent frequent cleaning efforts being made (balconies, hand rails, tables etc) only then to allow hundreds of pairs of bare hands to use the food utensils over and over during one service sitting is silly.

TUI REP - Patricio

My partner saw the TUI rep to book some excursions he’d seen on the Tui APP only to be told flaky information about availability and fluctuating prices - be wary!

LOCATION

The hotel is outside of Puerto De La Cruz but provides an excellent courtesy minibus that operates hourly (day time) it takes just 5 minutes to the town. The hotel is in a residential area with nothing to do so if you’re the type that likes to go for evening walks after dinner, this isn’t for you.

They offered food of all types (vegan, oily, healthy etc). 3x a week they offered food from different countries and of course Tenerife based food was always offered. We had a problem with our original room since some people at hotel smoked at balconies (no signs in the rooms too that smoking on balcony is not allowed) and in the first week, it was impossible to keep our balcony door open, due cigarette smell. Front desk was helpful and gave us new room where such problem no longer existed. Housekeeping was AMAZING. Rooms were cleaned extremely well. Waitresses were very friendly and quick. They took your plates away almost immediately when you finished eating. This hotel was definitely one of the BEST hotels in Tenerife. The location (Puerto de la Cruz) is the cleanest and the most beautiful location in entire Tenerife. You could not see a lot of tourists around and i loved it (compared to South-Tenerife). What's the most important? You can see el Teide mountain from the hotel itself. Pool boys were super helpful but you can sunbath only from 10am to 6pm which is weird since it was light outside up to 8pm. Pool was kind of cold but it did not bother me much because it was so warm outside. If you ordered something from the outside bar, it was brought to you while you were sunbathing. If you visit the hotel, definitely walk around the area since it offers some of the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises I have ever seen. when you choose a room, choose a view towards the mountain. Sunrises are the most beautiful things there when you wake up. The negative things are:

1. Wifi is bad and it is okay depending where your room is. They should purchase better router to offer constant connectivity everywhere. It drained my phone’s battery since it turned off itself many times.
2. Front desk and waitresses don't have good english. We didn't know that you had to have set table for dinner (can’t sit wherever you want to) and it was impossible to change it. Kitchen staff had better english. Be prepared to learn some spanish.
3. Gym was super outdated and machines made horrible noises when using them. They should hire someone to oil the machines or fix them.
4. No set parking spaces. Fortunately we visited this hotel when tourism season had not started yet and it was already hard to find a parking space. If you visit in May-September then be prepared that you have to park 1km away from hotel. We personally were very lucky that we always found a space but a lot of people did not.
5. Drinks in dinner were not free and no one told us. No one offered us menu (we only thought they offered water, beer and wine).
6. Breakfast started at 8am but a lot of tours in Tenerife already started at 8:20, so we had to run to breakfast in order to make it to our tour bus. Every 4 star hotel I have been at all over the world, have had breakfasts since 7 am or 7:30 am. It was major disappointment.
7. Set table during dinner. Since we were only people in entire hotel who stayed there for 2 weeks, we got the table in bad location. Someone who stays at hotel for 2 weeks, could get better table than someone who stays there for couple of days or 1 week. We could not change the location of the table because staff simply DID NOT UNDERSTAND english. Next time? Please be informed of visitors, who stay longer and remove the "set" table attitude for dinner. You are aware how many people attend your dinners. Why do people need one set table for dinner? When we were there for 2 weeks, A LOT of tables were empty which offered better view. Why you can sit anywhere in the breakfast but not during dinner?
8. Rooms on the 1st floor are not very quiet. Since hotel has rock floors, everyone who walked passing our room with heels, you can hear it super well and in the mornings it was super loud so I woke up couple of times 6am and 7am due loud noise made by either staff or people at hotel. I would put some carpet on the floor to quiet the hotel down (in the corridors where major movement is done).