Lobios Caldaria Hotel Balneario — Hotel in Lobios

My partner and I booked this "all inclusive" package for a one week relaxing break.||Booking was difficult, requiring documentation from our local town hall! Hoping to use public transport, we enquired how to reach the Balneario from Ourense (a local town 75 km away). Staff did not know! We decided to drive and enjoyed free (limited) parking, sometimes needing to park outside the Balneario car park.||Check in was quick and easy and the duty manager very pleasant (as he was throughout our stay). Room was clean and basic with views to the rear over the river. Lacking the advertised mini bar (not that we minded).||Food was basic and an unlimited self service buffet. First time I have suffered vending machine style coffee in a Spanish hotel (real coffee could be bought in the adjacent cafe). Orange juice was "made from concentrate" (to my mind the equivalent of a sugary drink with no nutritional value). I had encountered this once before, when the owner of a very modest inn was apologetic, as the orange squeezing machine had broken down.||Jamon Serrano made a rare appearance (twice in a week) but the cheapest cooked meats were available daily. This was a theme for the quality of the food. It was difficult to select healthy options. On one occasion, some fish was freshly cooked for me upon request, when it had run out.||Some dishes were recycled at the next meal. I'd like to think that they had not been out on the buffet but I'm not confident. Recycled, they were even less appealing. Vegetables were boiled to a pulp in traditional English style (granny putting the sprouts on for Christmas dinner in early November ; ) but that is the Spanish way.||Treatment equipment was old, some of it in poor repair and working inadequately. I pointed out broken steps into a bath to the attendant (they came close to collapse under my modest weight), which was met with a shrug.||Staff lacked any concept of customer service, single words being shouted, rather than any attempt at conversation. For example, "Temperature, temperature!" rather than asking, say "Is the temperature comfortable?". It is quite possible that the staff were unable to speak Spanish which is rather a handicap in a Spanish hotel. It was noticeable that the attitude of staff differed considerably dependent upon the supervisor on duty (there was an excellent gentleman who responded well to the television crew invasion of the pool).||The pool was limited in size but adequate. Many of the power jets around the sides merely dribbled and there was a power jet from the pool side which served only to create. noise. Staff turned this off when bellowing at bathers to come for treatment, announcing room numbers and names. I could understand single females preferring not to have their room numbers announced so publicly.||To reach the pool, we were required to wear masks and then switch to caps to enter the pool; outdoor shoes, naturally were forbidden. Alas, this did not apply to the television crew who entered without masks or caps, some wearing their outdoor shoes. ||My partner and I were filmed, not as background but as the sole people within the shot. I asked the camera man to stop filming; he laughed and continued. I spoke to the staff, who fetched the supervisor who was sympathetic and whisked us away to a jacuzzi. ||There was no consultation on filming or seeking consent. Many people may not wish to be filmed in swim suits and, at the very least, management might have given notice of their intentions and allowed people to leave prior to filming. There was no apparent reason why filming could not have waited an hour, when the pool would close to customers.||Location is idyllic with some forest walks which we enjoyed. There is little else. There is a pool nearby, served by a natural hot spring. It can be crowded, although on the one occasion we tried, it was too hot to enter. We lay, instead, in the river, which was pleasantly cool and very clear (we could see fish within the river from our bedroom). DO NOT, however, wear a Balneario dressing gown to the pool. We were severely reprimanded (a dressing down : ) for wearing these outside of the hotel. There seemed to be a paranoia that customers might steal the dressing gowns (far from luxurious, some threadbare and rather tatty). Who would want a second hand dressing gown, worn by goodness knows how many people?||The lost hat? My fault; I left my favourite hat behind when we checked out. We let the Balneario know and later they called back to say they had found it. I asked them to post it to me and offered to pay expenses and postage. NOT COMPANY POLICY! ||If I wanted my hat returned, I was to arrange for a courier to collect and return it to me. Not really worth it for a 50 euro hat (I still miss it).||We shall not return (even with the prospect of...

Very poor experience. We live in a nearby village 20 minutes from the hotel/spa and have visited the public hot springs at the side of the river a number of times. We thought it would be nice to treat ourselves to a more luxurious experience. Unfortunately, that was not to be. |The lady at reception processed us through but did not explain exactly what was available in the spa or give any instructions other than here is your gown. |On entering the changing room before transitioning to the pool side, I noticed that the changing room was in a poor state of repair. Around a third of the lockers were broken or out of use. The disabled toilet seat was loose and falling off. The disabled assistance bar at the side of the toilet was disgustingly rusted and broken at the hinge, making it difficult to operate, and one of the urinals was covered up and out of use.||Walking through to poolside, there were a number of assistants some with clipboards walking around. Unfortunately none of who spoke English or even attempted to use some form of phone translation to assist. ( We are currently learning Spanish and don't have any arrogance to expect everyone to speak English) We are in Spain to integrate and not expect everyone to adopt our language.) It is however a service industry and it wouldn't take much for staff to have google translate app on their phones to assist.||The spa pool itself was OK. It's not overly hot, but temperature is always a personal preference, so I won't go there. Some of the individual water jets were not functioning, and the larger ones were OK but on 3 of them.||Once we had soaked long enough, we decided to leave. I tried to speak with another member of staff to ask what other facilities and treatments were available but again not successful. I then decided to walk around what appeared to be public/customer areas that were open and unoccupied. I was shouted at and had hands waving at me, stopping me from doing this. I tried to explain that I just wanted to look at the facilities as a customer but was clearly unwelcome to do this.|We left after this and will not be returning. |In our experience, the municipal facilities in the region are much more welcoming and a higher...

Used the spa facilities. Nothing was explained to us even though the receptionist spoke English, and we were trying as we were in the early stages of leari g to understand and speak Spanish. Once inside the spa pool, it was quite basic in comparison to other spa hotels I've attended. There are a lot of maintenance issues, including a broken tolet seat in the disabled toilet and a number of lockers and the jets in the spa pool. The staff were not approachable and rude and did not seem to want to help. I tried to look around the facilities but was shouted at and not even allowed in what appeared to be open areas to check out the facilities. This would have enabled me to be better informed about the available facilities and maybe come back for a second visit. Personally, it was a massive disappointment and will not be coming back to this shabby poorly...