PortAventura Hotel El Paso — Hotel in Salou

We have stayed at the El Paso Hotel in Salou twice in the past, in 2014 and 2017. We just returned from a stay 17th - 25th of June as a party of 10. We had the all-inclusive “VIP” package.||||The hotel has got worse on each visit, both in terms of facilities and staff.||||We arrived at the hotel in the evening to be met with screaming children absolutely everywhere. The entire reception and lounge area was just teeming with wild, unruly Spanish school children, running everywhere, falling over, shouting and no one keeping them in line.||||After a very slow check-in process, we made our way to the Quetzal block. The pool again was teeming with school kids and extremely chaotic and wild.||||Entering the Quetzal block, again, we had to make our way through a maze of kids who seemed oblivious to our attempts to pass them. I honestly think if we didn’t get out of their way, they would have tried to run through us.||||ROOMS||||Arriving at our rooms, we realised they had made a mistake with the beds. They had given us double beds instead of the usual double bed and a bunk. This wasn’t ideal as my brother’s and nephew had to share a bed, and my own daughters also had to share. Not what you expect when paying the incredible fees to stay at the “4-star” El Paso.||||As the hotel was jam-packed with school kids, the reception staff could not offer an alternative room and were pretty blasé about the entire situation.||||My parents' room also had a substantial ant problem at the doorway. We didn’t have such an issue in our own room, but I did find ants in my bed more than once. I’m not sure what was eating my wife, but she had more than 10 insect bites over the week.||||During our stay, we had access to 4 rooms in total, and all of them had malfunctioning air conditioning. Trying to sleep in the 30C+ heat every night was brutal.||||The toilets have a really poor flush; it takes 2 or 3 full flushes. The showers were good and had strong pressure.||||The tap water is massively chlorinated; it smells like swimming pool water when you wash your hands, so it’s not a great idea to drink it. Having good drinking water was a problem in this hotel as they don’t allow you to fill a water bottle from the good sources anywhere in the hotel. There are signs on all water dispensers saying NO BOTTLES… And if you chance it and they spot you, you get a proper telling off.||||FACILITIES||||The swimming pool is lovely - if you’re lucky enough to get a day without every square inch taken up by a Spanish school child.||||The lifeguards are very strict and will blow their whistle over the smallest thing. I felt tourists were unfairly targeted while the Spanish school kids could basically do anything they wanted. If you wear your glasses, even with a neck tie you will still have to remove them, or if you splash or jump in somewhere, you will get a telling off. But Spanish school kids can do anything they like, and the lifeguards don’t bat an eyelid. It’s like a two-tier system. Like if your child jumps in the shallow end, they tell you off, but a Spanish kid could do a proper headfirst dive into the shallow end all day ,and nothing is said.||||There are odd rules poolside too. If you try to use your all-inclusive drinks, you are told you have to buy a Portaventura cup for 1 euro, which can be refunded after you’ve used it. You can keep these cups and get them refilled. But then, other times you ask for a drink you are given a normal glass, there seemed to be no pattern to when you needed to use the refillable cup or just get a normal glass. Sometimes they will point-blank refuse to serve you unless you have the cup, and sometimes it’s not an issue. Each time you do anything in the hotel, you have to show your room card too, which is a pain, so if you get a drink, ice cream, food etc you have to also show your room card despite having the wrist band on.||||The problem with this is the QR code rubs off of the room cards SO easily. So you’re constantly taking your card in and out of your pocket, or passing to kids so they can get their all-inclusive item, the QR code just gets more and more destroyed. It will get so bad that the card will just stop working if you use it for the theme park entry. You can get your cards reprinted at reception but sometimes you are waiting forever as the reception is so slow. It honestly seems to take 20-30 minutes for each person to get checked in.||||Other times if you’re in the pool and want to grab a drink they will refuse to serve you with your pool outfit on. My wife was refused service because she was wearing a bikini, not even a very showy one, just a standard bikini, so I had to get her drinks from that point onwards. But then others get served wearing string bikinis. The rules a lot of the time just made no sense, one person gets refused service or told off for something menial, then the next person does the same or worse and receives no warning at all.||||FOOD||||The last time we were at El Paso all-inclusive, there were three buffet-style meals on throughout the day. This time they only offer two, morning and evening. The poolside cafe offers food from noon until 6 pm.||||I felt a tiny bit cheated by this as it felt a bit cost-saving for the hotel, but it ended up being quite a useful option. Getting food in the park is pretty impossible with all the queues, so having the option of returning to El Paso for this option was very convenient.||||The food is OK, a little cheap and cheerful, but it’s not bad. There are also great salad options and always lots of fruit. You can just help yourself to everything without the need to talk to staff or hand over your room card for the millionth time, which is great.||||The breakfast and evening meals are booked via a QR code. Note that the QR codes glued to the tables in your room do not work; you need to use the QR code that is printed on your room key slip when you first received your key cards. A website loads, allowing you to book the times you would like to eat in the morning and evening. You can also book into the park's food restaurants.||||Despite using this website to book times, we were always just let in whatever time we showed up, perhaps one of the few benefits of having the VIP pink wristband.||||This whole QR code scanning at the buffet restaurant just seemed like a massive carry-on for everyone without a pink band. On our other visits in 2014/17, you were just given tokens upon check-in that you handed in at the buffet reception. That seemed like a much better system.||||The food quality again was OK, the hot food is cheap and cheerful, it's just like a Travel Inn breakfast you would get in the UK, cheapest of the cheap sausages and reconstituted eggs, but where it really shines is with their fresh produce. So much fruit, the melon was particularly good, and the salad station is amazing.||||Again the school kids issue here was horrible. Normally people queue at either side of the hot food and take turns to take items. If the school kids are in at that time then it’s just a crazy free for all royale rumble to get any food. It’s four deep with kids that act like they have never eaten before in their lives, and queuing is unknown to them. You will have to physically push your way through to get any food for your family, it feels like the food line in a third world country.||||Again no staff bat an eye lid at any of this atrocious behaviour, and even the class teachers just shrug their shoulders at the lack of control they have over their class. But as a tourist, if you DARE fill your water bottle for the day at the water station, you will get a proper telling off.||||Staff guard the drinks stations with a vengeance to make sure you have the all-inclusive band. One little girl in front of me tried to get some lemonade, but the drinks guard told her in Spanish that she was not allowed. The little girl didn’t understand, and the staff member almost mockingly pointed to the sign and took great pleasure in telling the little girl she was only allowed water. Sure, rules are rules, but she almost looked to be enjoying her job a little too much and upsetting the girl. It left a bad taste with me for the rest of the holiday.||||THE PARK||||The hotel does not have its own access to the park. It’s a short walk, but you get no early entry. We asked if we could enter early, using the other hotels' entrances, but they said no.||||They say you can get unlimited access to the Portaventura Park, but it’s not totally true. On the first night of its late-night opening we tried to access the park, there were large queues so we joined. We got to the entrance and the staff just looked at us, perplexed. They said we could not enter, despite staying at a park hotel, these particular staff members took great glee in turning us away. We asked at reception why we could not access, they just said the park was closed tonight. I said we queued to get in with everyone else and reception just said I must have been mistaken as the park was closed. I guess the heat from our airconless room drove me mad. Even the park app said the park was open.||||When we stayed in 2014 and 2017 you received one free entry to the water park. Not anymore.||||When we visited the hotel in the past, it could offer you amazing fast pass bands for the park. It was a reasonable price and you could access the rides as many times as you liked. However now the fast passes are only a few euros cheaper than they are everywhere else and they are stupidly expensive.||||They seemed to have stripped all the benefits of staying at a Portaventura hotel.||||Conclusion||||Hotel El Paso is not a four-star hotel. Maybe a two. The hotel needs to decide if it’s a luxury hotel that wants to attract high-paying guests or if it wants to be a youth hostel for Spanish schools. It can’t do both.||||The staff would constantly mention our VIP bands, but the “VIP” experience at this hotel was non-existent. In fact, I think they hated their VIPs, and we were an annoyance to them. The reception staff were quite blunt and rude; any issue we had seemed to be such a chore for them. It’s not our fault they didn’t give us enough beds, or that the QR codes kept rubbing off.||||Literally, the only benefit to staying at this hotel for the parks is the unlimited entry (unless you get denied entry like we were). If you could get a week access ticket to the park and stay at another better hotel that actually appreciates its guests, I would recommend that instead. Portaventura do not value its hotel guests.||||Tips:||||Buy the 1 euro cups, fill them from the water dispensers, then decant into your water bottles. This is the only way I found to be able to fill a water bottle for a day in the park without being shouted at.||||Go to the park at night time for the shortest queues. The end of day parade and show is great.||||Pros:||||Wonderful pool when not mobbed by Spanish school kids.||Poolside food and drinks are convenient.||The grounds are clean.||||Cons:||If you visit when the Spanish schools are in session, it’s a hellish experience.||Despite being on the top VIP package, you feel nothing like a VIP and are almost disliked by the hotel staff.||The hotel prioritises Spanish school trips over all other guests.||Staff are overzealous with rules against foreigners and flout them for locals.||Inconsistent rules when getting all-inclusive items from the poolside.||The air conditioning in all four of our rooms was broken, which made it hard to sleep.||A strong waft of sewage smell is present most days near the pool, and even near the buffet restaurant toilets.||No park entrance, no early entry, no free access to the water park.||Pitiful discount on fast passes.||Lack of places to get clean...

This is a review by a family of 5 including 2 parents, 2 grandparents and 1 child of 2yrs of age. 7 days and all inclusive staying at El Paso Portaventura. This holiday was in school term time so Id imagine it will be a lot busier when the kids are off school.||||Let’s start with check in - we travelled with Tui and the transfer time was only 15 minutes. Once in the hotel we checked in, we’ve seen complaints of it being very slow so luckily for us there were only 3 families checking in so it wasn’t too long. We have seen bus loads of people turning up and it can be quite slow as there is only 1 maybe 2 people checking people in whilst at the same time guests are trying to book reservations for restaurants, change and get new towels. There is not a separate queue for this. The towels are €2 euro per towel which is non-refundable. There is also a €15 deposit for each towel (if it’s cash you pay up front and get it back when you hand the towels back in, if it’s card they’ll just take it out at the end of the holiday if you don’t hand them back in you can get fresh towels daily from reception. Our rooms were not ready until about 3pm, you get a txt when they’re ready. ||||Rooms - We were on the ground floor in room 5024. Large double bed with a separate single bed. The room was quite basic but clean. It did have a safe in the room that we didn’t use as we preferred to put a padlock on our case. There is a sesame street channel on the tv in English that kept my 2yr old entertained whilst we were getting ready. There was no kettle, fridge or iron in the room. This didn’t really bother us. I overheard someone at reception asking about a kettle and they said it’s either €15 or €50 euro for a kettle for the week, I couldn’t distinguish between the 2 and I’m not sure if you got this back at the end of the holiday. The maids cleaned and changed the towels daily. Id recommend taking some coat hangers as there were only 5 in the wardrobe. The patio door didn’t seem to have a lock on it, there was no way someone could get in from the outside but my 2yr old found it quite amusing opening and closing the door. The air conditioning wasn’t very strong but when left on it did keep the room cool (take a spare card to put in the slot). Overall I had no real issues with the room.||||Pool - we spent most of the time in the baby pool with the pirate ship but the rest of the pool is massive and there was plenty of sun lounges. It is true many of the lifeguards don’t let you in the pool with your sunglasses on unless it’s attached by string this mainly depends on the lifeguard at the time. I wore a hat so this didn’t really bother me. The lifeguard said this is because once upon a time “someone’s sunglasses fell off and a child jumped on them and cut their foot”. A weirder rule for me was we weren’t allowed to use inflatables for babies unless they have somewhere to sit in them otherwise they’re not allowed to be used. There is a little play area at the side of the pool that could be made better, if I was being very critical I’d have liked to see a slide in the baby pool to make use of the pirate ship. The pool bar has ready made cocktails, ice cream, slush, alcoholic drinks. It is true you do need your card and your wrist band not sure why people have made such a big deal about it. You need your card as people that were self catering/half board were finding/given wrist bands from people that were leaving. The card stops that happening. The service wasn’t as slow as people made out. People have also been moaning about having to pay €1 for a cup, it’s not really a big deal, just keep your receipt and get it back on the last day. You can get a fresh cup/washed daily. You can get food and drink from another poolside bar, this is all self service, it’s steady away but you can’t take the plates back to your lounger you need to eat it at the the tables provided. There were a lot of wasps around this area though. Overall experience of the pool was very good. ||||Food - The buffet is your standard buffet plenty on offer and you won’t go hungry, it changes daily, some reviews said you need to book in for breakfast which we did, we booked 7:30am everyday, I don’t know if this was because we were not in the school holidays but we figured out we didn’t need to book, we just turned up at any time and just walked in. We didn’t book for lunch or dinner at all, they only check your card at dinner time to double check you’re all inclusive. We didn’t get rushed out after 45 minutes either. You can eat in el coyote twice in 7 days, this was a nice change and it’s table service. We did this once and you need to book this at the main reception. There are plenty of signs saying you can’t fill bottles up at the water stations in the restaurants, we filled ours up throughout the holiday and never got questioned once. There is a vending machine on the ground floor at the end of block 5000 which sells drinks, water and snacks.||||Entertainment - This could be slightly better in my opinion. It starts at 7:30pm generally 1 lady singing, then brings out woody the woodpecker, bit more singing and dancing. This last about 20 minutes. They then have a 15 minute break and repeat the process a few more times up until 9pm with the odd change of song. When woody comes out and goes back you can’t take pictures with him, I think this is down to people can pay for a meet a great in the theme park, so it defeats the object if people can get 1 for free. A rock band came on at 10pm only 1 of the nights, so after 9pm there was no entertainment, we were ready for bed by that time anyway. ||||Theme park - It’s massive, you need to download the Portaventura world app on your phone, it has a map of everything from attractions, to restaurants and shows. This is where you book your food also on the hotel. This is where you also get your QR codes for your food, we had 3 QR codes daily, 2 adults and child, the adults is worth €21 euro each and the child is €11. You can spend these in the theme park and you can get a lot of food for that money, we had 2 starters, 2 mains and a 2 desserts with a drink with the adult codes, and my daughter had a kids meal with her QR code. The good thing about the codes is you can bank them for the week, for example we went to La liga twenty nine’s bar (it’s on the way into the theme park). It’s quite expensive for the food in there. I had day 3,4,5,6 days banked. For our family the total bill came to €197 so I used all my codes and covered the bill. I still had day 7’s to use, we enjoyed the food so we went back the next day and my mum used her codes to cover the cost. If you do eat here just walk up and book as the app did say it had no availability. This can be used in any restaurant in either Ferrari land or Portaventura world. (Id highly recommend screenshotting your codes as the app can be quite temperamental) Back to the theme park and shows. We went in twice, the first day was quite stressful with a 2yr old as she wasn’t tall enough to go on most things, we went in for when it opened it was quite busy. It’s a massive theme park and takes some getting about. We did manage to see 3 shows, magic bubble, Sesame Street and aloha Tahiti. The magic bubble and the aloha Tahiti were good, the Sesame Street one was all in Spanish ( I know im in Spain so should expect it), it was a tough watch for us adults, my daughter seemed to enjoy it though. 2 days later we decided to go back at mid-day which seemed slightly quieter but with a better plan this time, we went to far west in the park and watched the west gold frenzy show and had some food (using our QR codes) this was excellent and I would highly recommend watching this. The wait on the big rides ranges from 20 minutes to 1hr 40. If I was giving advice I’d try plan what you were doing on the app before going in and sticking to it as we spent quite a lot of time walking about aimlessly. Some people in the hotel were sitting by the pool, looking at the waiting times then just going up to the park for 1 of the big rides then coming back to the pool. The parks are only a 5 minute walk away.||||We did walk into salou a couple of mornings, it’s only a 15 minute walk to the beach front where there is plenty of shops.||||If you’ve made it to the end of the this long and someone boring review then I hope it’s answered some of your questions and worries.||||Overall I was very apprehensive about this holiday after reading all the negative reviews. But I need not have been. We’ve had a great time and would maybe return in the future (when my daughter is over 1mtr) so she can go on more things in the theme park. All the staff were polite...

I am never one to write reviews about hotels however I felt like I had to write this one to inform people not to book here.||My wife, two year old daughter and I booked up for a week's all inclusive from 20/08/2025-27/08/2025 at Hotel El Paso, I had previously read reviews about people's experiences on this and wished we had changed our destination as the money we paid certainly did reflect a four star resort or all inclusive package.||On our arrival on 20/08/2025 at the hotel check in took a considerable period of time and we were advised we would receive a text message when the room would be ready which could be up to 3pm ( no issues)|| First issue: Upon getting the keys to room it was a bit dated but we accepted that as it was going to mainly be a place to sleep. We noticed there was no fridge in the room and upon checking the facilities for each room it stated online they didn't come with the room. Due to our daughter still drinking milk and my wife being a type 1 diabetic we required a fridge to store insulin and milk. I was more than happy to pay to hire one or to see what the hotel could offer. I went to reception to explain the situation and I was met with a member of staff who unfortunately stated there was nothing they could do, they couldn't store milk for us in their fridges and she couldn't tell me if I could get any in the morning or evening on site as the nearest shop/supermarket was in Salou itself. I was then told to go up to a bar at the resort and get an ice bucket with ice to store the milk and insulin (the ice melted within an hour) I went to a bar and was told I couldn't get one as it wasn't allowed but I eventually managed to get one after laying out my frustration about lack of communication in the hotel.||Second issue: Air con, it's advertised the rooms have air conditioning, they have it but it doesn't work and when highlighted to staff they say they get someone to come and look at it but it doesn't get fixed so if you enjoying showering in your own sweat then these rooms are for you.||We booked through Jet 2 so I contacted them and met a brilliant colleague of theirs named Gesner, he challenged the team leader named Angela at reception , who I can only describe as an arrogant and self-centered individual who clearly hated customers who raised complaints with the hotel. She stated there was nothing they could do about the fridge issue but Gesner wasn't happy with this and within half an hour we managed to get a fridge for the milk and insulin.||Issue 3: All-inclusive but it's not all-inclusive.|The hotel is advertised as all-inclusive which you receive a band and a room key card which you have to present anytime you go to the bars when you want any juice or snacks, however this only active between 11am and 11pm. They have minimal members of staff at these so the queues can be huge when you're wanting to get something to eat or a drink. The wrist bands you have to wear are simply not enough to get anything and there were at few times at dinner where my wife and I ordered drinks and the staff wouldn't accept the bands or a room number the card had to be presented which was ridiculous. ||Issue 4: Pool closures|Over the course of our week the main pool was closed twice due to "issues" first time was the first day and then the second time was a couple days into the holiday whereby at 10am when the pools are too open the main pool was literally green. I took my daughter into the kids pool which has large private ship, which is brilliant, and I was shouted at by a life guard saying this was also shut even though the water was crystal clear and there was no signs informing anyone and it would also be shut all day. The lifeguard also shouted at me for wearing my SUNGLASSES in the kids pool as it wasn't allowed, what a joke of a rule that is!!! We then had to fork out 79 euros to go to the waterpark as it was 34 degrees to keep cool. ||Issue:Cleanliness pool/seating areas| Each morning we would see the Loungers around the pool would never get cleaned and empty glasses and rubbish being left scattered around the resort with staff then cleaning it up later in the day or not at all which again doesn't give off a 4 star hotel vibe.|||Issue 4: Staff|I'll firstly say there was some really nice and hard working staff at the hotel mainly at the main restaurant where the buffet and breakfast was who made you feel welcome and engaged well with our two year old, but they were few and far between. If you don't follow the strict rules you get shouted it's absolutely ridiculous and the way I was spoken too I certainly wouldn't treat anyone like that myself.||Issue 5: Feral adults and children| I know this isn't a hotel problem but I totally understand everyone is on holiday and is away for a break or to enjoy themselves but the amount of times we were woken up at 1/2am with adults and children running up and down the corridors shouting and screaming, banging doors and just having a general utter disregard for other holiday makers who are sleeping at those times especially with children was infuriating.||The food at the buffet and breakfast was actually not bad and there was different varieties on each occasion, the downside was the buffet didn't open until 1930 hours each evening which with a young child wasn't ideal but again it wasn't advertised anywhere.||You'll also get eaten alive by mosquitos, both my wife and I came back covered and no matter what bug spray you use there is nothing you can do.||I was honestly so disappointed in this hotel and the whole experience. We paid £3000 for an all inclusive package for the week at this four star hotel and I honestly think we'd have had a better week in Butlins. The hotel has so much potential, it's a great location for the parks but needs updated along with overhaul of staff attitudes and stupid rules.||I certainly won't be going back after the experience we had so please avoid and...