Cafeteria Gelateria El Castell — Restaurant in Benidorm

We had a terrible experience here, the old grumpy waiter is so rude and useless at his job. The tables were dirty and the staff seemed disinterested. We were only ordering a couple drinks and it took about 10 minutes for the waiter to take our order (considering there were not many customers at all and about 5/6 other servers). We asked for a Fanta lemon which he said he had, when the drink arrived it was some horrible tasting flat knock off that they charge more for, when I asked why I was told we’d get a Fanta lemon, they said it’s impossible to stock this??? We then had to wait 15 minutes for a server to come back and give us the bill, despite asking numerous times for this. When the bill arrived I gave the old guy a €10 note, (the drinks came to €7) he then walked off and did not come back to our table for another 5/10 minutes. I then got up and went over to the old guy and asked for my change, he refused to give me my change and claimed “it’s in the till and it’s for me” and that I had to pay a tip - I explained the service was poor and I wanted my change - there was a lot of back and fourth until he grumpily threw the change onto the table. It’s not about the money, it’s about the assumption I wanted to give him a tip without checking or asking, for what was terrible service… Avoid this place - there’s so many better options...

This is the perfect place for those who like to DINE and DASH, or in this case, leisurely walk away! We had lunch and drinks here which was fine, and we were served reasonably quickly. The location is lovely although they had the shades covering the tables on a fairly cool and slightly overcast day. However, trying to pay was another matter. It took five attempts to obtain the bill, including one where one of our party went inside and spoke to the manager and that still didn't work. We even stood up and walked over the the side of the Mediterranean Balcony for 10 minutes and they cleared our table without any concern. At this point I'd have walked away but one of our party was insistent we pay, and eventually got a rather surly waiter to come over with his card machine. I would definitely avoid having anything here if you're on a tight timescale such as heading back to the...

We ordered a cocktail and I mentioned to the waiter I wished no ice, since last time we came to the restaurant, 90% of the drink was ice. I Simply wanted to order ice on the side afterwards.

I order my drink and afterwards flag another waiter down to ask for some ice on the side. After 2 min the first waiter comes back, and places a small "bucket" of ice HARD, on the table looks at me with disgust, shakes his head and walks away..

He made us feel like we were the scum of the earth for asking for some ice on the side.

(The second waiter was not like this and spoke to us normally and friendly)

We will not be coming back. Too bad such a beautiful location has a restaurant with some rude staff. Exchange that single waiter and it's a perfectly fine location...