Hotel Boutique Hort De Nal

“A fabulous, relaxing holiday”

A review of two halves...... Please stick around for the second half!! About 7ish days before our stay I had a message from the hotel asking me roughly what time we would arrive? I responded saying that we were likely to be there around midday. I had read the reviews about checking in at 4pm an… more

A review of two halves...... Please stick around for the second half!! About 7ish days before our stay I had a message from the hotel asking me roughly what time we would arrive? I responded saying that we were likely to be there around midday. I had read the reviews about checking in at 4pm and not before so I advised that we would put the bags into their storage and sit around the pool for the time in between. I was then messaged back with quite a curt tone that to do this would be a charge of 10 Euros, per person, per hour. 80 Euros (would actually have been 100 as the airport was very quick to get through) before a single purchase, absolutely not!! At this point had the room not been paid in full with no cancellation possible I would have happily cancelled and found another place - I've stayed in places at both ends of the scale in terms of cost and have never been charged to use the facilities if the room hasn't been ready. I've also used pools for other hotels at no cost providing drinks etc were purchased whilst using them. The message quite upset me if I'm honest and I was not looking forward to the stay as much as I had been..... HOWEVER all I can conclude is that the messaging is done by unseen members of the team as when I got there I was met with nothing but smiles and a huge welcome by Pilar. We didn't ask to use the facilities at this point based on the message, so just dropped off our bags and went to explore the town and have lunch. When we came back our room was ready and the bags had been placed in there. Christina had taken over from Pilar and showed us around, and explained the WhatsApp messaging system. Our pool/garden view room was lovely, and the bed was extremely comfortable as was the pillow that we chose (there was a choice of 3). Shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, soap, and body lotion were provided as well as a hairdryer, and beach towels. Kettle and coffees/teas also provided. There is also a coffee machine and water which you can access 24 hours. We settled in at the pool and although it felt very strange to start with we soon got into the swing of ordering beer etc which Christina brought to our sunbed, each time with a smile. Wines by the glass are not available and when I brought this up Christina said I could purchase a bottle and they would keep it in their fridge and she would bring me a glass as and when I requested one. Perfect! We chose to eat at the hotel that evening and the food, cooked by Jose, was lovely. I will agree with other reviews that having a busy bar and restaurant atmosphere would be nice but with only 9 rooms I guess this would be difficult to achieve. Pilar and Jose were generally on breakfast duty - we had filled in the form given with our choices and we could eat inside/outside, or in our room. You could have amended your choices every day but we stuck with the same, and as we had to leave fairly early on our last day chose to have it as a takeaway (given in a lovely hotel hemp bag). We did notice that there were cooked breakfast options available in the information book that is in your room, although we didn't try these. We texted the night before that breakfast choices were the same and whether we'd like it inside/outside etc. While we were there we wanted to watch the England match and Jose was very helpful in suggestions of where to watch. The night before we had watched the Spanish match and was expecting to find screens in the same places but this wasn't the case. All of this texting went on while we were away from the hotel but with each question we had, Jose was at the other end, extremely happy to assist us. We had a 5 night stay and as this was meant to be purely a relaxing break we stayed at the hotel for the majority of the time during the day, going up to our room around 7 to get ready for our evening out. (As an aside, we noticed that there was a large turnaround of guests - some only staying for 1 night in the bungalow.) On the last day I did mention to Christina that it would be great if we could have some other music - the same songs seemed to be on repeat. As I've said we were there for a slightly longer stay than other guests so I noticed it more than perhaps others would, but this is my only complaint. My other suggestion is perhaps 1 or 2 more umbrellas around the pool area would be good as after a certain amount of sun everyone was looking for more shade. However, rarely did it get too busy that anyone struggled - If all the guests were using the sunbeds at the same time it may have been a problem. You are allowed to use the pool at any time and we did have 2 midnight swims where the air and pool temperature were very similar with zero breeze - this was a perfect end to the evening. As all rooms overlook the pool please note that after 10pm it does need to be done quietly. The pool is saltwater not chlorinated. Bar service via WhatsApp is available until around 10.30pm - there is an honesty bar available after that/24 hours. There are some lovely bars and restaurants in Elche and it took us around 10 minutes to walk to them. A taxi from/to the airport is around 25 Euros. We had a fabulous relaxing holiday and I'd like to thank Christina, Jose and Pilar for making it so. If we are ever visiting this area again we would definitely stay here again.

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