The Hotel Orquidea Gran Canaria. It was immaculate and friendly. The rooms are spacious and not at all cramped we asked for a low floor and thats what we got the entertainment is fantastic Big Daddy and Special K are so polished and professional lots of fun to be had especially the Big Daddy crazy frog.

On arrival the hotel seemed really great & the first few days were good until my daughter of 4 years of age was attacked by someone out of the resort.

It seems the security in the hotel is not at all good, there's no cameras in any of the childrens areas & there's plenty of ways to enter the grounds without being seen. So as for it being a super family hotel i totally disagree.

It was a clean hotel & the reception staff were great with us.

The food was nice but very similar every day.
Can't thank Ben, Anna & Dee enough for their support. They're been our rocks over the time we were their & helped us so much after such a horrible experience.

We have just returned from a holiday at the Hotel Orquidea. My son aged 7 has been in tears every day as he wants to go back so much. We all loved the entertainment, especially the team - Big Daddy, Special K and Jammer.

Buffet food was something I wasn't looking forward to but everything was fresh, and really tasty. There was sometimes a wait for a table but this has to be expected in a hotel that size.

The pools were lovely and the children loved the kids club. We will definately be going back next year, if not sooner if I can twist the husbands arm!!

What can I say this Hotel was the best I have ever been to. Food,entertainment and staff are 100%.

You have all those little extras that help your holiday go smoothly from location to towel change every day. I found it was not just the Hotel that was good but the surrounding areas.

I felt safe and secure in the evenings and would tell anyone to go there. The entertainment was varied and the team realy worked hard.

We have been two years and missed this year trying somewhere else,but nothing can compare when you have been spoilt......needless to say Ive booked up for next year -you live and learn.

If you have children or are just going as a couple you could not ask for more!!!!

The hotel was spotless clean. The maids do a great job in keeping the rooms tidy!

The food was just as good as last year!!

Hotel staff are all very friendly and helpful. There is a doctor on call in the hotel if you should need one....which I did he was very nice and helpful.

Well what can I say about the entertainment staff apart from they are all great and make the holiday, we are missing them already.

I wasn't really looking forward to this holiday, being the action man that I am. I would have preferred something where there was a slight danger that I could break my leg at any given moment. However, once I got there and started to relax, I changed my mind.

I think it helped that we were there out of season and consequently, the hotel was pretty quiet apart from a mad woman who sunbathed topless all day evey day and spoke in an unintelligible accent to everyone and anyone. One day I was minding my own business looking at some postcards in the hotel shop when she approached me laughing insanely and told me that she just loved postcards. Er, thanks for that. Now go away.

Anyway - onto the technical stuff.

The hotel was spotlessly clean and the rooms were immaculate (cleaned daily). However, our TV did not appear to work at first (unless you enjoy watching a grey, crackly screen) because, for some reason, the aerial had been unplugged and by the time I realised, it was the second to last day. Duh!

The rooms are spacious and are complete with a fridge, a kettle, a hairdryer (which definitely didn't work) and a safe (which you have to pay to use). However, I had a couple of minor gripes - a couple of tiles in the bathroom were smashed to smithereens and detracted somewhat from the aesthetic quality of the room and the socket behind the fridge was hanging out of the wall with loose/bare wires visible.

We stayed All Inclusive, and the food was faultless. Breakfast and dinner are served in a large, canteen style restaurant with a buffet menu which you help yourself to. Lunch was served in an adjacent restaurant called El Sultan. The choice there was rather limited, but I had steak every day and grinned with pleasure as I chomped on it voraciously.

The location was pretty, although the beach was not actually a beach, more an outcrop of boulders of assorted sizes.

The hotel grounds are amazingly large, with three pools which were quiet at all times. They did not appear to be heated, but the weather was so warm that this did not matter.

The area where the hotel is set is rather small, with a town square that comprises little more than a collection of restaurants and shops. However, Maspalomas is a short bus/cab ride away and there is a nearby gym and supermarket. We bought a digital camera/camcorder from one of the stores in the town centre. The price first quoted was 965 euros, but we ended up getting the thing for 150, with a free handbag thrown in to keep the missus happy Make sure you haggle with the guys in the shops. Beware of expensive imitations though.

The hotel staff were friendly up to a point, however, I did get the impression on a number of occasions that the staff (particularly the bar staff) simply did not want to give us free drinks and snacks. We didn't exactly abuse the fact that we were all inclusive but it was sometimes rather embarrassing, as they made us feel like second class citizens. So don't tip them.

The entertainment (although I didn't witness a great deal of it) seemed to be a roaring success, with the thrilling sounds of Michael Jackson, Queen, George Michael, Elton John and, er, AC/DC medleys booming through the night air to continuous rapturous applause.

I would definitely visit here again. Highly recommended.

We found the hotel food excellent, the dining room was quite quiet although was getting busier towards the end of our 3rd week as was into May.

The rooms were excellent and clean and a great sea view even whilst laid in bed.

Reception and the public areas were also very clean.

The pools were brilliant and our 3 4yr olds (triplets) were in their element with a choice of pools.

The gounds were superb. The playground was also a great bonus and quite a social meeting place.

We met some great people which made up for the lack of entertainment in the first 2 weeks, we were told that Thomson's did have entertainment before 1st May but they didn't but once it did start it certainly made up for it.

Big Daddy and co you are a star and we had such a good laugh and joined in most of the activities and have the medals and t shirt to prove it. The kids enjoyed the kids club no problem getting in even with 3 in the same group.

Hope to return soon.

Rooms kept very clean. Ceiling fan nice and cool just right for this time of year. Don't know about August though with no air-con.

Food was very good although any longer than a week would become pretty boring.

Hotel location was good as it was nice and quiet and as we hired a car, a good base to travel to the nice golden sandy beaches.

The hotel beach is NOT a beach, it is a craggy outcrop of rocks and black shingle. You had to wear shoes just to get into the seat without your feet being ripped to shreds.

Anyone hoping for a nice beach to sunbathe on forget it. Travel to Amadores beach (30mins) or Anfidelaemar (25mins) in a car or catch the bus GC-500.

Stayed here easter 2005 for 2 weeks.
Rooms kept clean & tidy plenty of towels but don"t rely on the hairdryer (not ideal for long hair).

Food good on whole a bit repetitive by second week.

Location ok for us like it quiet its not for party goers.

Entertainment staff good brits could join in activities apart from kids club which is scandinavian only.

Kids still had good time once they made some great friends.

Thank god for meeting a jolly good crowd of fellow brits! the evening entertainment provided for us was an organist, not very exciting. If you wanted an alternative you could join the 300 scandinavians in the other bar, but as there was only a handful of brits we felt a little out numbered. There was no entertainment for our children, day or night.

The food in the buffet restaurant was great. If you wanted to eat in the Al a Carte at lunch time "all inclusive" were not allowed to sit outside and were made to feel a bit like second class citizens. The food provided to all inclusive at the pool bar was very poor, tasteless burgers, cold panini's, and curleds up ham sandwiches. Plastic glasses in the hotel bar, aargh. Certainly not 4 star.

The hotel staff were very friendly,helpful and found it as frustrating as us when it came to what exactly was & wasn't to be provided to all inclusive holidaymakers. Some days certain things available other days not! All in all Thomson failed miserably.