Bancal Hotel and Spa

I left with mixed feelings about the Bancal Hotel. We came to stay as our partners were rowing the Atlantic as part of the Worlds Toughest Row Atlantic Challenge 2024. The hotel is only about 6 months old (note that Google maps will take you to the old location which is much closer to San Sebastián than the new hotel). From a distance it looks like a vast concrete military base. The whole hotel is pretty much concrete... there has however been alot of very lovely planting which will increasingly improve the vista as it matures. There are swimming pools on most levels and they have been done beautifully. The hotel wasn't very busy when we went and there were sufficient loungers.. in the busiest times I would be less sure. Food: We ate in the buffet most nights and the food on the whole was good for buffet food. Note that if you get there half an hour before closing choices will start to run out. Lunch down by the lower swimming pool was very tasty. Gym: Small but new gym which had all the things I needed.. if you are after very heavy weights it might be a bit lacking Yoga Some friends did the morning yoga and said it was excellent Wellness Spa One thing that is fairly well hidden both on the website and when booking is that the indoor pool and spa is extra. For hotel guests it is 25 euros per visit and has to be pre-booked. It has been done beautifully and was a nice way to spend an hour. Rooms The design of the corridors makes you feel like you are entering some kind of space pod..the rooms themselves are as you would expect and the beds are comfortable. Some annoying design features... the smoke alarms are over the bed and flash during the night, the loo and shower are screened with glass only (frosted at the relevant points) but if you are travelling with friends or a new partner you feel fairly exposed using them. Some of the smaller things that make up a good hotel are missing like tissues. Room cleaning was hit and miss... note if you leave any electronics on the bed it won't be made. Tea and coffee's were not always replenished, dirty mugs not replaced with clean . on some occasions the bathroom area wasn't cleaned. The TV's don't have an English setting .. at one point at about 11pm all the tv's received a message which caused them to turn on.. we couldn't read the message so just turned the tv off.. so it popped back on again 5 minutes later. Eventually we unplugged the TV (which also meant the wake up call wouldn't work).. apparently if we had accepted the message it would have stopped but we couldn't read that. Service You very much get the feel that this hotel is still in training mode.. the staff are incredibly friendly and very keen to please but on a number of occasions when we raised issues we were almost argued against instead of just receiving an apology and a fix. Location As mentioned before it is not as close to town as the old hotel. We would run down to town in the morning but it is not somewhere you wo

Called a Hotel and Spa but be aware you have to pay an extra 25 euros per person for the spa which is not mentioned on the website. Weather is cloudy and not warm so we were looking forward to a few hours in the spa and sauna.. but not prepared to pay 50 euros when we have already paid over 200 euros for the room . Missing a trick here.. the hotel is almost brand new and virtually empty.. it is misleading calling it Hotel and Spa when the spa is not included in the price.

We visited this hotel from 15th - 22nd November. It is a long journey flying to Tenerife South then coach to the port, ferry and coach again to the hotel. The rooms are set in tiers in the hillside. Our room was 509. It was quite large with a terrace. One tiny piece of soap and no flannels supplied. Toilet paper small squares in container attached to the wall. The room was “serviced” each day but this involved clean towels if you left them in a specific place, a quick wipe of the sinks and toilet. The sheets were not changed during the week and the floor was not cleaned all week, neither were the corridors to the rooms meaning the tiling was dusty with footprints. Electronic bracelets open the room doors. The staff are very under trained and there are too few of them. Many speak very little English. They are slow to clear restaurant tables which results in queues. The quality and choice of food is poor and not replenished quickly enough often cold. The pools are very clean but chilly. The pool towels are not fluffy but a sort of bedspread material. The entertainment is poor too. The show bar was closed all week. Football was shown in the main bar most nights. The staff need more training on serving drinks. An inch of wine is not a “drink” and like Oliver Twist I had to ask for more. If you want a very quiet hotel that is very isolated it’s fine but there is very little to do. We took a taxi into the town (the bus wasn’t running). We had lunch in the main square which was very nice. We won’t be returning.

The hotel is new and contemporary, very modern and clean. The staff do their very best to attend to you and try hard to please you. The interior and areas around the hotel are stunning. Sadly these are the only good things I can report about the hotel. I have to give praise to the waiter Emanuel who was exceptional. All the other staff were also very pleasant and wanted to make you happy. Now the bad points that Tui and Bancal need to address based in the fact we paid for a luxury spa hotel with a list of amenities that were unavailable. With Tui's description and what we actually found in reality I have never felt so misled in my 39 years of travel. The hotel is sold on the basis you have a choice of restaurants and bars to use and you can visit beaches within minutes either on foot or by bus or car and that San Sebastián centre is close You are told you can hire a car to see the beautiful Island or get a taxi into the town for eating out etc. The Hotel is sold on a bed and breakfast basis with the vision of travel around the Island enjoying the spa and multiple bars and restaurants. The truth: To walk to San Sebastian be prepared not to be able to move the next day and pay over the odds to get a taxi back. One restaurant operates each day for breakfast and dinner - that is it. The food is not warm and very repetitive. Tables are not cleared , food runs out quickly , large queue's form before you enter the restaurant and staff are flustered and fed up. Often the Managers have to start clearing plates away. This restaurant is the only one where meals are included although if your on bed and breakfast then your stuck with no choice as you can't eat anywhere else. You can't even buy a packet of crisps or a bottle of beer anywhere. You are encouraged to book in online , which is not an easy process and are told this will save time when you check in. When you arrive hardly anyone has bothered with online check in and so you join the long que and end up waiting half an hour while those who have not checked in online take ages talking to staff and moan when you try to explain you have checked in by advance as recommended by the hotel. The staff seem to agree with these people which really makes you feel "why do I bother". You are given the impression by Tui that you can get a bus , taxi or hire a car to see lovely beaches of fine sand that are suitable for kids within a walk or drive well ... no buses run from the hotel , to walk to town is a 6km walk with no pavements , taxi's stop running at 10pm and prices range from 10 to 20 euro's - a complete rip off. We had major problems hiring a car and when we did we were not told a price and were given an old car full of scratches. To obtain the car I had to make a formal compliant to Tui to be told the Island had ran out of hire cars. After my complaint I manged to get a car thankfully. The sunbeds were all taken on a few warm days and so we had nowhere to sit out , on cooler days it was not an i

The hotel is wonderful, new, with incredible views. The rooms are very nice, but the bathroom could have a little more privacy. The food is very good and the service is aceptable. We notice that they need more staff to have a 4 star service. One person in particular, Emanuel from the buffet restaurant, stands out. His service was impecable, very friendly and he gave us very good wine recommendations. We also saw him at the hotel bar, and again he served us wonderfully. Emanuel is the only person in both the bar and the restaurant who served us in English and understood what we were asking for, because we try to talk with the person in charge at the buffet and he didn’t understand us, and that’s is not good. This is something the hotel should look into, if the majority of your clients speak English, it would be nice if your staff spoke English as well. The rest of the hotel is very nice.

First impressions driving along the winding road to Bancal was that it looked bleak and uninviting. How wrong could we be! The interior is absolutely beautiful (it is very new!) gleaming glass, steel and polished concrete. Very "Grand Designs"! The infinity pools were absolutely gorgeous with the view of Mount Teide in the background. The gardens, beautifully laid out, well maintained and well established considering the place is so new. Lots of steps to access the many terraces, lifts are available but not to every area. The only downside is its remoteness due to no local bus service and no courtesy bus. There were occasions when it was very obvious there was a staff shortage as tables not cleared, causing a queue at breakfast and dinner. We did the "Thursday Trip" arranged by the hotel. This covered a large area of the island and demonstrated what a weird and wonderfully unique island La Gomera is. Would recommend.