Bristol Hotel

We stayed at Hotel Bristol in Benidorm for two weeks in September, in a Superior City View room on a half-board basis. The hotel itself is in an excellent location, particularly if you prefer the Old Town side of Benidorm. It’s also very close to the Consum supermarket, which was handy. Our room was clean, well proportioned and comfortable, and the shower was excellent. We had a couple of problems with the room on our first day. The toilet flush broke and the TV stopped responding, but both issues were dealt with immediately, so no complaints there. The room did quite often have a noticeable smell of drains/sewage when we returned to it. I’ve experienced this in other hotels in Spain, so I don’t necessarily think it’s unique to this hotel, but it was noticeable. One thing I did find irritating was the balcony door. Opening it switches off the air conditioning, which is fair enough, but there’s no handle on the outside to properly close the door when you’re on the balcony. Even once you close it again, the AC stays off and you have to manually switch it back on. The AC itself was also limited to 19°C at the lowest setting and took quite a long time to cool the room to a comfortable temperature. Food For us, the food was probably the most mixed aspect of the hotel. Breakfast was perfectly adequate and I could always find something I was happy with, although the quality of the bacon could be a little inconsistent. It’s not quite up there with the Don Pancho, but it was certainly good enough. We don’t normally stay half-board or full-board, but the additional cost was so small that we decided to give it a try. The hotel has a different themed evening across the seven days, so here are my thoughts: Gala Night: A mixture of different dishes and flavours. Generally good quality and easy to find something you liked. Mexican Night: Probably one of the weakest for us. It wasn’t particularly Mexican and felt more like a European approximation of Mexican food. The flavours weren’t especially bold or creative, so we gave this one a miss the second week. French Night: One of the better evenings. Good meat, fish and other options. We enjoyed this one. Spanish Night: Very enjoyable with a good selection. You’d hope so, being in Spain! Italian Night: A slightly strange one. The buffet normally has some form of pasta every evening, but on Italian night there actually seemed to be fewer pasta choices than I expected. The pizza was no different from other nights and the lasagne wasn’t particularly good. There were some good meat options though, including, rather bizarrely, roast beef and Yorkshire puddings. Italian? I’m not convinced! Mediterranean Night: One of the best nights on offer. Some excellent pork dishes and plenty of other good choices. We enjoyed this one enough to go twice. Asian Night: Unfortunately, probably the biggest disappointment. Other than the pork, everything felt very bland. It was almost as though the chefs were afraid of using Asian spices and flavours. This had the potential to be one of the best themed nights but, for us, ended up being the weakest. I should stress that none of the food was terrible. It just sometimes lacked imagination and flavour, particularly considering the themes. One thing the kitchen did consistently well was pork. Most, if not all, of the pork dishes we tried were really good. Overall Overall, we had an enjoyable two-week stay and I would certainly consider returning, particularly because of the excellent location. If you’re someone who spends a lot of your holiday around the pool, this might not be the best hotel for you. The pool area is relatively small and can get overcrowded. However, this didn’t really bother us. We only went in for a dip later in the day when most people had left and the pool was in the shade. The staff were friendly throughout our stay, with a special shout-out to Lola, who was lovely. Pros Excellent location Very clean Comfortable beds and room Friendly staff Food generally good, despite some weaker themed nights Excellent shower Problems dealt with quickly Cons Occasional drain/sewage smell in the room Some disappointing themed food nights Air conditioning could be stronger Small and busy pool area Would we return? Yes. The hotel isn’t perfect, but the positives outweighed the negatives for us, and the location in particular makes it somewhere we would happily consider staying again.

This hotel is situated in a very convenient location, shops, restaurants etc in the calmer old town area. Bus stop also across the road. Nice interior, friendly staff and good breakfast. Has a bar area too. Nice pool, a little cold! But fine once youre in. It does go shaded around 3pm though. However the solarium on floor 8 is great for sunbathing till later. They also have snacks advertised at the pool bar such as pizza/baguettes but at 12.45 the lady told me shes not doing food anymore so we had to rearrange our day by the pool and go out as we were hungry! Overall a good hotel