H10 Salauris Palace — Hotel in Salou

Just returned from 11 nights at this hotel. Very disappointed with it after the reviews we initially saw. Will start with the positives - the location is very handy for port aventura park and is a short walk into an area with bars and restaurants. The hotel bar is very reasonably priced and the communal areas are clean, Our family room was a reasonable size for the 4 of us. Room cleaning was carried out daily and had no issues with this. Cleaning staff were very polite and gave me an extra loo roll when I asked them for one. Now for the negatives: The queue for Sunbeds starts early in the morning , we didnt use the sunbeds but saw the queues an hour in advance and understand there is a mad rush to get beds once the doors open. We did use the pool on 2 occasions, on one occasion my children fished out empty sweet wrappers, tissues and a cigarette packet from the pool which was floating around. There is entertainment , the kids mini disco however doesnt start until 9pm which is late for little kids, and then proper entertainment starts at 10pm. There is a water machine where you can fill a bottle with cold tap water in the bar , however after midnight the area is locked and cannot be accessed and if you run out of water in your room there is no access to fresh drinking water. This also stopped working for a full day and there was no other way of gaining water while this occurred - we asked the bar if they could fill bottles and they said no! There is a small fridge in the rooms , there is also air conditioning which is very handy in the rooms and worked well. Now to the restaurant, my husband follows a vegan diet for food intolerances , we advised this when booking as we had read reviews saying they catered for this. However the vegan choices were very limited as the food labelling was non existent - they may have been choice for him but the labelling was missing so to be on the safe side my husband avoided a lot of things. Most days he would just have rice and vegetables, there were no alterative protein choices. The main food choices were very random and there was a lot of dried up meat (probably from sitting out on the counters) The salad was all mixed up where people dropped fish etc in it as the fish choices were mixed up with the salad items. In addition to this I and 2 of my children also developed sickness and diarrohea 2 days into our holiday - we suspect this was related to some spoilt food on the buffet as my husband who hardly ate anything was the only one that didnt get ill. With the meal you are only able to order wine by the bottle (not just a glass). We lost 3 days of our holiday to the illness which meant we could not use the tickets we had pre bought for port aventura! We discovered that port aventura catered very well for vegans so were very disappointed that we could not eat at the park. My husband had to seek food options outside the hotel in order to source some protein. When I mentioned the sickness to our Tui rep she mentioned that she had received reports from other guests of the same issue which the hotel reception had denied when we reported it to them. Needless to say after this we were very wary of what we ate in the restaurant ( we had chosen half board for the convenience of having breakfast and evening meal choices) but ended up eating out due to the limited dietary information available in the restaurant. Breakfast was Ok (not for vegans - although there was soya and oat milk - the cereals were not labelled though) There was long queues for the hot drinks machines and even longer queues for the toast machines (only 2 in the room) - my husband had toast but this unsettled him but due to lack of labelling the bread may well have had dairy or egg traces! The day reception staff were friendly - the waiters and bar staff not overly friendly and could be quite abrupt. The only time you get free tea and coffee is in the breakfast room in the morning . We do feel that we were let down by the description that Tui gave us as our experience did not match our expectation of a...

Overall had a really pleasant stay and would stay again if visiting Salou (although only could really recommend Salou itself for its proximity to PortAventura)

Pros

Fantastic location: you can walk to PortAventura in about 15 minutes, the hotel is on the edge of town but it's still not far to reach things in town and that means it is quiet in terms of Salou's nightlife.

Cleanliness: fantastic throughout, our rooms were cleaned to a high standard daily, everything was wonderfully maintained. We stayed in a 5* hotel last year and the Salauris was cleaner than that.

Rooms: tasteful decor, with a comfortable bed and a large shower. I was very pleased with the standard of the rooms. Free and good air-conditioning.

Attention to guest requests: I requested a specific feature in our room for our comfort and was very pleased that we were allocated this without fuss.

Food: was very high quality and tasty throughout. Particular highlights are the potatoes and cakes. They have a separate vegan and gluten free menu if you need this. This was the first time staying at a hotel that provided breakfast where the scrambled eggs looked appealing rather than disgusting and they tasted good too.

Bar prices: seemed reasonable, 6 to 7.5 euro for a cocktail rather than 9 plus elsewhere.

Entertainment: the schedule seemed quite full and although we didn't specifically watch it, it seemed funny when we happened to be in the vicinity while it was going on.

We also arrived early and it was clear the hotel staff were working hard to check in guests before the 3pm check in time.

Cons

Soundproofing- this is the biggest factor that would take it from a 5 to a 4 for me, since, short of ripping out and redoing interior walls and doors I'm not sure the hotel could address this. It was so bad, we could hear the TV through the wall, coughing, etc. We had smokers next door and they would not stop coughing. This could quite easily ruin your holiday if you had inconsiderate neighbours. You can also hear everyone going by outside the room. Thankfully we are heavy sleepers, and we took a white noise machine. Would advise this, and perhaps earplugs.

Food: it was a pro, but despite being really tasty, the food did get samey, and options repeated throughout the week. The number of vegetarian options dwindled over the week as well. (Night one we had quiche, pizza, veggie lasagne, salad bar, grilled veggies, various cheeses, etc) By the final night I basically had salad or pasta to choose from, even the pizza wasn't available. So had to resort to the vegan option. The churros were also consistently undercooked on the inside which was a massive bummer. The desserts although really tasty were pretty much exactly the same every night.

Food labelling: really needs to be improved and made clearer, for example, the desserts were just labelled 'cake selection.' For food safety reasons you should at least list the main ingredients/flavours and allergens of everything you serve and whether they're suitable for veggies, etc.

Poolside food: overpriced and not great, the 4 cheese pizza was a literal mountain of blue cheese, even my blue cheese loving partner thought it was too much.

Poolside area: although nicely maintained I don't think the size of it is sufficient for the amount of guests and it could be a fight in peak season.

Smoking policy: as I mentioned, we had smokers for neighbours and not only did they disturb us by coughing but they also prevented enjoyment of our balcony as they basically chain smoked on theirs which wafted onto ours. Again not really sure if the hotel can do much about this but maybe ask if they require an ash tray upon check in and then prioritise allocating them to a separate smoking floor or something? I don't like lung cancer or my stuff...

The Salauris Palace is far from a 4 star hotel. I have stayed in better 2 star motels in America! How these hotels get away with calling themselves 4 star is beyond me. This is a long rant about the hotel but if like me you have spent over £2000 on your Jet2 holiday then you should at least be aware so you can make an informed decision on whether to stay here. I don’t like being as negative about a hotel but £2000 is a lot of money to spend on what is a 3 star hotel at best. The location is the only reason to stay here. The decor is old. The grout in the bathroom is horrendous. The cracks in the walls. Bring insect repellent for the ants living in the bathroom. The ants are everywhere. We have been quite badly bitten but I cannot totally blame the hotel. We were out and about a lot and may have been bitten outside of hotel. I didn’t find any ants on the beds during my stay however the bathroom was extremely bad prior to spraying.

Noise -Do not visit the Salauris palace if you are looking peace and quiet. I stayed in room 154 and the noise in the evenings was unbearable. Earplugs were the first purchase the next morning. To be slightly fair the noise from the entertainment doesn’t go on beyond 11 ish most night however the noise from the other rooms and hallway and the road soon takeover. Do not stay in this room or any rooms near it if you have young kids that you will need to get to sleep before 11pm. It was a battle for us most night and in the end we had to use earphones to get our child to sleep.

Smoking-It bills itself as 100% smoke free however they provide an ashtray on the balcony! Im sure they technically mean 100% inside the hotel is smoke free but the balconies you can smoke freely which of course means you can’t use your balcony as you will eventually have a smoke smell clinging to your clothes. I found this out the hard way after leaving a pair of shorts out on the rusty dryer that is bolted to the balcony. They still stink of smoke 4 days into holiday. They also say no smoking around pool however again zero enforcement and you will find yourself at the mercy of how ignorant a smoker you will have beside you. Some smokers at the Salauris seem to have some kind of manners and make an effort not to smoke around you and your 5 year old but they are few and far between and most don’t care. They do have a smoking spot conveniently located at the steps out of the hotel lobby, meaning the you will have to walk through a stench of smoke with your family to get to the pool.

Room amenities - I have stayed in numerous hotels in the UK and USA. I haven’t stayed in as many Spanish hotels but I think it’s totally strange that you have zero coffee or tea making facilities in your room. Maybe this is a European thing I’m not sure but again for 4 stars I want to be able to make a coffee. There is a “fridge”. It’s really just a cupboard to store your drinks. It will not keep anything cold at all.

Food -Having chosen the half board option I knew I would probably have to adjust my tastes to a Spanish cuisine which for me is quite easy as I eat anything however I still struggled with the quality. The breads and pastries seem to be of a good quality but everything else is pretty bland and flavourless. My main gripe with the food was the temperature. Again maybe a European thing but I never had a hot mouthful of food during my entire stay.

WiFi -Forget about WiFi. It doesn’t exist. I had a Surface pro, 2x iPhones and an android phone with us and none of them could connect to WiFi with any real success. You can forget about watching YouTube or Netflix etc, it is highly throttled WiFi for anything other than WhatsApp and emails. You will need a European data plan if...