Orquidea Hotel

This hotel has clearly seen better days — the trouble is that nobody seems to have touched anything since. The terraces are genuinely spacious, and that is one of the few real assets this place has. The rooms are large, yet as bare as a rented student room: no fridge, no kettle. The bathrooms are functional and clean, but heavily worn — they carry the same lack of renovation as the rest of the property.

Breakfast is described as a buffet. The table may well be Swedish, but the selection certainly isn't. Meagre, monotonous and without a trace of effort. There is internet, technically, but it drops so often that you can't rely on it for anything — the connection tends to disappear precisely when you need it.

The low point came halfway through our stay, when we were locked out of our room. The reason? A hotel error — the name on the booking matched ours only in the first two letters. Instead of an apology, we were told, with some irritation, that they had no free rooms left. It's hard to sum it up better: the hotel mixes up a reservation, throws a guest out of their room mid-stay, and then holds its own lack of availability against them. The following day the same thing happened with a different receptionist — with one difference: despite the identical mistake, he simply handled it. He checked, explained and sorted the matter out without treating the guest as the culprit.

Against that backdrop, the housekeeping team deserves genuine credit. They did their work conscientiously and thoroughly, every single day — the room was always immaculately prepared. They are the one part of the staff that truly earns praise, and it's a shame their diligence isn't reflected anywhere else in the hotel.

The hotel's age, tired interiors and modest breakfast can all be forgiven. What's harder to forgive is the absence of basic courtesy when the fault was entirely their own. That costs nothing — and that's roughly how much of it we got.

Great for location, very central, close to shops, carnival festivities and grabbing the bus. The breakfast items were also good and constantly refreshed. The staff at reception were very friendly and always on hand to help with any questions or queries