La Palma is a wonderful island and Las Olas is a brilliant place to stay.
Our plan was to stay 3 days, while we ended up staying 9 days!
Las Olas gets top marks for customer service, hospitability, friendliness, pool area, proximity to airport and Santa Cruz, and the food. We rate the place excellent on a price/quality basis.
We did not have a prior booking when we arrived at the hotel, and chose the place based on Tripadviser and Booking.com reviews (predominately good).
We looked at other hotels on the island, but did not see a better alternative for us.

THE WELCOME
The receptionist claimed they were rather fully booked but found a room with sea-view on the second floor of the backmost building. This turned out no good for us, as our 23-month old could climb the balcony bars, and we requested an apartment on ground level the same day (we did not get this). One receiptionst claimed this would be difficult, but we got a great apartment without a problem the next day. The hotel seemed barely half full, so it is a mystery why we could not get a different apartment instantly.

THE APARTMENTS
The apartments are fairly spacious with room for all of us (1 double bed and two cots) in the bedroom. Kitchen is small and quite poorly equipped (no toaster, no kettle, few glasses, no coffee-maker, bare minimum of cutlery) but works fine. The microwave in the first apartment did not work and had to be fixed (the janitor came at once).
The living room consists of a two-part sofa which can be made into a bed (did not try this option), and a TV-shelf with a decent TV.
The quality of the building is poor with bad locks for windows and doors and paint/plaster falling off the walls. The shutter for the fuse cabinet was hanging loose.

OUTSIDE AREAS AND SURROUNDINGS
The gardens and outside areas, however, are beautiful with palms, cactae, green grass and flowers. The three pools are also magnificent with few people and lots of space to do laps and for the kids to swim. Only thing is they shold heat at least one of the pools.
The small kids area was worn but the kids liked it.
The surroundings are very picturesque with the ocean, black lava cliffs, the green hills and the mountains in views. Due to little light pollution the stars are beautiful at night.
There is a brillant, fine-grained, black, beach about 10 minutes walk from the hotel towards Santa Cruz. There are wave-breakers, life-guard on duty and sunbeds for rent.
Santa Cruz is 4.5 km nice jog away.

THE FOOD
We thoroughly enjoyed the buffet food served at Las Olas. The chef is inventive and creates lovely dishes with a high degree of variety every day. Both meat and fish were succulent and well prepared (much better than other places), and the desserts all too desireable. But, yes, the food does get cold and is an area of improvement.

THE PEOPLE
The staff at Las Olas is the reason why this place gets top marks from us. They are the most friendly, helpful and enjoyable people we have ever met in a hotel, and very good with the kids.

THE GUESTS
We were the only Norwegians in the hotel among German, Dutch, Flemish (Belgian), Polish and Spanish guests, most of whom were older people and/or hikers. A quite and polite crowd.

LA PALMA
The island is for those who seek peace and quiet, nature, hiking and adventure. It has volcanoes, a giant crater/caldera, high mountains (2.426 mtrs), a rain-forest, pine ridges, banana plantations and very scenic roads. Seek out Los Tilos, Refugio del Pilar, Roque de los Muchachos and the drive from El Paso to Refugio del Pilar.