When life was simple

Arrived in Crete late at night and the pre -ordered cot was not in the room. The hotel could not do anything until morning so our 4 month old son slept in a suitcase padded out with towels! I have booked hotels, read the reviews after booking,and been concerned by a poor review but then had a fab time.
I think it is all down to personal expectation. Having run a hotel for ten years I can see it from the other side!

In Spain, if you don't want to wait all evening to eat, you can construct a pretty good meal out of tapas.

Paradors do their own deals as well on their website. Tarcheta de cinquo noches and usually one aimed at retired. In my experience they do fantastic breakfasts. Evening meals are seen as an opportunity to show off the cuisine of the region and vary. But getting anything to eat in the evening in Spain before 9pm is not easy. And then it is sometimes not what we would call an evening meal e.g. a cutlet and 6 chips or (this time last year, memorably) 6 squid sitting on the blackest, tarries, in su tinto, sauce in the universe. And a small dab of mash.

Blimey jingle, might as well have a bath. Once in France, having booked a room with a cot, we arrived to find they didn't do cots so DD2 slept in the bath with every pillow, blanket etc we could find to cushion her. She keeps bringing that up to prove what cruel parents we were.

That was in response to kittylester's post about showers.

One we are staying in soon has a shower over the bath, but it appears you have to sit down to use it! (France)

You can get a good deal on a room in a Parador, if you go to one of the booking sites such as Laterooms.com. A few years ago I found a room in the Malaga Parador for a very reasonable rate. It was luxurious compared with the cheap rooms we'd booked in Granada and Seville - although these were comfortable and convenient.

Have sorted Barcelona. I will look at those Hotels, Penstemmon.
OH is one of those who just wants to go and sort it out when we get there.
Nothing could be worse, for me at the start of a holiday.
I've told him that I will just book Book Barcelona Hotel, but I'm going to have the others lined up.

I think reviews are great otherwise I wouldn't have realised that the fabulous looking, recently refitted hotel in the Brecon Beacons had NO showers

Have you stayed in the Parador hotels in Spain?

I have always found them to be good

JO, I"M not !! LAL

I think its the Americans! Probably depends where you are looking at.

I just read the reviews from the Brits as there are so many it is a way of limiting how much to read and perhaps they would have a similar approach to us?

I'm not sure they are all management and trolls as you can't post on the same establishment for 3 months after your last post on Tripadvisor so it would be quite a hassle to get round it. I always put my honest opinion and think quite a lot of others do too.

Good luck with your research. I'm currently planning something much simpler - a month's 'flyandflop'

I think the Brits are!

Well they are at the hotel in Mauritius !

I disagree , the French are the worst IMO