Arminda Hotel & Spa

My son booked this hotel as a birthday treat for his girlfriend. I contacted the hotel in advance to see if they could make the room extra special. Valia, in their reception team, was very responsive to my emails, and arranged a special treat in their room on arrival. They enjoyed their stay at the hotel, and were particularly impressed by the innovative towel designs performed by housekeeping each day! Good food and entertainment. Would thoroughly recommend.

This is a well-run hotel, the staff were very friendly and efficient, always seemed to be cleaning both inside and outside. Special mention for the 2 lads who ran the Votsalo bar. The room was spacious but lacked draw space (should replace bedside tables with 3 drawer units), and a safe included but this was a little on the small side. The bed was also huge but did have the usual quilt which I find is too warm. There was a kettle and cups in the room but no coffee or teabags, etc.. I don’t know how full the hotel was but there was no problem getting sunbeds and there was plenty of shade available, a few people still felt the need to ‘reserve’ them when it wasn’t necessary. There was a buffet restaurant and that didn’t have a huge variety of foods on offer but was reasonable, there was also a snack bar near the lower pool. The soup was only luke warm on a couple of occasions but the rest of the time was hotter than most hotels. We had Cappuccinos dispensed from a machine available for breakfast but only ordinary coffee available for the other meals. This brings me nicely on to my complaint that a lot of so called ‘all inclusive’ are not. More and more are not providing- certain things like, in this hotel, the named coffees and cocktails. The bar did supply a specific cocktail free each day; my wife took advantage of the Pina Colado offer, although pleasant it was not what a normal Pina Colado should be more like Rum and pineapple, 2 days later I saw the barman make one for a paying customer (9 euro), that was definitely the real thing. Although WiFi was advertised as being available in the lobby, we found it available all over. The animation team did not try too hard to get people involved, announcements were only made at the top pool whereas there were more people round the lower pool. Only saw 2 shows over the 10 days as the theatre was an Amphitheatre with stone seats, no good for my wife’s Arthritis but I don’t think we missed anything worthwhile. I ended up watching football in the bar while she went to the room to play on her iPad - not what we came on holiday for. Note that the hotel is on a hill which can make it difficult to get about for the handicapped but the various lifts make it negotiable