HOTEL LOSANGELES MISLEADING WEBSITE

We stayed at Hotel Los Angeles, Santander in december 2006. The photos on the website encouraged us to book because it looked really nice. However when we arrived we were disappointed as the website is totally misleading. There is no swimming pool or fitnesse equipment on site it is actually a ten minute walk away, however on the website it is put in as property amentities.
There was also no satelite or cable T.V in the rooms as described, or in the hotel at all.
Our air-conditioning in the room was only blowing cold air so we were freezing at night.
The restaurant was shut, we had to eat in the bar area, the food was awful, customers were putting cigarettes out on the floor, it was filthy.
Lastly there was building work going on,on the 2nd floor, which was from 9 o,clock in the morning until 6 at night. The walls are really thin and there was no respite from the constant banging except for one hour for dinner, they didnt even stop for siesta. When we booked with this hotel we were not told anything whatsoever about building work going on. The receptionist could speak limited english until we went to complain about the noise, then her response was non comprende. I would not reccomend this hotel in anyway it totally ruined our stay.
D.Bramhill

HOTEL LOS ANGELES SERCOTEL (On the outskirts of Santander, Spain). YEUGH!!

My husband, myself and our two teenage children booked 2 double rooms for 2 nights in this hotel as a stop gap before catching the return ferry to Plymouth from Santander - it looked good value for money, had reasonable reviews and we especially wanted air conditioning which it said it had.
On arrival at the hotel around 4.00 p.m. after a day of travelling we went straight to our rooms for a rest to find that they were both like ovens! I went straight to reception to ask them to check our air conditioning - the lady receptionist (who could speak English) said it was working ok - it wasn't! My husband (who knows a thing or two!) looked out of the children's window and could see the air conditioning unit - the chiller clearly was NOT on. Bear in mind that the temperature in Santander was 38 degrees! We went back to reception to find that the receptionist became most unhelpful, suddenly couldn't speak any English and could just look at us, raise her arms in the air and smile. The elderly gent next to her was NOT smiling at us (turned out to be the Owner). We pointed out that as the rooms were advertised with Air Con and clearly weren't we would be leaving immediately to which we were told we would be charged for the room. This wasn't acceptable to us and we stood firm. After a few minutes the receptionist disappeared outside - when she came back in she said that the "timer switch was off by accident". Fair enough, we thought and we went back to our rooms which within 10 minutes had started to cool down.

I went to use the bathroom - the door wouldn't open properly because the sink was crammed behind it and when I pushed past the loo the whole thing rocked (no, I am not enormous!!) and on closer inspection the bidet and toilet were not fixed to the floor! Any attempt to sit on the toilet sent you crashing into the wall! In fact, I really didn't want to use the bathroom at all as it was so grubby - this was supposed to be a 3 Star not 1 Star.

Anyway, we went out around 7.30 p.m. to eat and got back around 10.30 p.m. to find that they had switched the Air Conditioning off again (probably the minute we went out!?) and that it was unbearable. We went to Reception but there was only the Night Porter who wouldn't do anything. Why would he? He was sat in the wonderfully cool Reception area which had a separate cooler system (a case of "I'm Alright Jack"?) We spent a terrible night - we had to have the windows open to let what little air there was in, together with the mosquitos, along with all the traffic noise (where ARE those little mopeds going to at 3, 4 and 5 in the morning with their screeching engines?)

We paid for one night and left as soon as possible - we didn't dare to eat any breakfast having seen the state of the place - and went to another 3 Star about half a mile up the road - The Nueva Plaza - which was a world away from the Hotel Los Angeles - clean, cool, modern, lovely marble bathroom, with friendly staff and only 20 Euros extra per room. We ate in the hotel restaurant, which is where we ate the previous night and how we knew they had a couple of rooms available. The food was lovely, and the service was excellent - we were even invited to join the manager/manageress (husband and wife team) for a drink in the bar and were presented with a bottle of wine as we left as a present! All of which, I hope, goes to show we are reasonable, sociable people who just don't appreciate being treated as idiots.

It is such a shame that people can be misled by a description on the internet - it would save future tourists to Spain a lot of trouble if this hotel was accurately described, was totally refurbished or better still, demolished.