Vacancéole - Hôtel*** Spa Las Motas

This is not a hotel to visit, if, like us, you were seeking a nice resort hotel for a short (one week) holiday. On the plus side, the food in the restaurant is well prepared and portions are generous. It is quite expensive though and there is almost no menu variety. There is the same 4 starters, 4 mains and 3 desserts every day. On some days there is a menu du jour, also, the staff are quite friendly and pleasant. It is like a place run by students without any training but well intentioned. For the rest, there is really nothing positive. The hotel is low rise spread over a big area. Rooms are accessed by long corridors. There is one lift to the upper floors but then you have to make your way up and down slopes, through several fire doors, to your room. There are no luggage trolleys to help. No phones in rooms. No English language TV channels. An eccentric bathroom with no shelf in the shower for soap or shampoo. The soap and shower gel provided in tiny sachets is inadequate. Best to buy your own. The shower in our room leaked badly. Most hotel rooms do not have a view of the pool area, just a brick wall. Built in a u shape noise from the courtyard booms upwards into the rooms. There is little privacy on balconies and no sunshades. There is absolutely nothing to do. Alènya is a small, dull dormitory village. About 500m from the hotel is a Spar shop for excitement. This hotel is right by the cemetery in the dullest place imaginable. The beaches are a minimum of 5 km away and it is more to the local seaside towns. The seaside towns nearby at St Cyprien and Argelès have better hotels right there. Also life and activity. Much better places to stay. Staff do not wear uniforms except for room maids. The service staff wander in during breakfast in street clothes and all help themselves from the guest buffet. There is little sign of hygiene. In the evenings at dinner they turn up in jeans or whatever straight from the outside, serve up some food, nip out to sit on the front steps to have a smoke then get some more food for guest service all without washing their hands. Food service staff do not even seek to control their hair or wear aprons. Not nice. Two or three cats are based in the restaurant, not good if you are allergic or if you care about animals in a food area. The swimming pool is very large, 25m by 13m but very dirty. The tennis court is full of holes and puddles. If there is a worse place to stay near Perpignan I have not heard of it and cannot imagine it. There is plenty of choice. We tried to book out on the first day but the payment was made in full up front and they would not refund. Pictures of pool mould, restaurant cat and standard room with "view" attached. Beware their photos on web sites, they are very misleading. Some are of the residential flats in the hotel complex, others are of selective superior rooms which are slightly bigger and made up for the occasion. They are misleading. All room types must use the same restaurant and pool.

First impressions on arrival were not good on a Sunday afternoon - there was a DJ pumping very loud music (with massive speakers) just outside of the pool area. We subsequently found out that this event happens every Sunday for the locals to enjoy the facilities and food is also provided (for a fee). Thankfully, the noise stopped around 17.30pm. Also, one other night they had a live band playing till about 11pm. The pool area (with surrounding gates) is a bit tired looking, with just a handful of loungers and only two permanent sun parasols. The pool also has green algae or mould of some kind in the actual pool and there were lots of things floating. We stayed in the hotel part of the building and we had go through a maze of corridors to get to our two rooms. The first room was nice and large but unfortunately our room did not have a door leading into the bathroom. We had a curtain and top it off, we did not have a door on our shower, we also had a shower curtain. The rooms were clean and the beds were comfortable. We only ate in the restaurant for one evening and even though we struggled with the translation of the menu and food was tasty but the staff struggled with the amount of guests and it wasn’t even that full. My husband and daughter had breakfast and commented that there were lots of choices and it was very pleasant. Surrounding area - there is a SPAR not far from the hotel, two lovely boulangaries near by and a couple of small eateries near by if you didn’t fancy eating at the hotel.

All in all it is a nice hotel. But there is a lot of room for improvement. like the implementations of electronic key-cards that could help a lot with the air-co and energy conservation and a few simple system put in place to improve on the below remarks. - The staff was very friendly - The hotel was clean - Breakfast had sufficient choice. - The garden was very nice and well maintained. - The room was small, but that is what we paid for and thus good enough. - Good location of the hotel. Perpignan close, so are beaches and attractions are easy reachable. One has to have a car though. - Only on the Monday morning there was not enough staff at the busy breakfast time, it was a mess. The other days it was fine. - There are no systems in place for conservation of energy. No automatic switches for the air-co and the staff switched it on at all times. - The beds where made with winter duvet covers. There should have been a sheet with light blanket on the beds and the duvet cover in the cupboard for when needed. It was 30 degree outside. - Before the days of arrival, twice I sent an email in English with a request via different channels and did not get any reply. This seems to the be fault of the reservation department. - With booking there where welcome cocktails included. We never received them. They should have given us a voucher at check-in so we did not have to ask for them. After this, at checkout time we got deducted 3 coffees from our bill as compensation for the forgotten cocktails, but only after asking to have them given as compensation. Spa was included in our booking (there is a charge normally), but if you plan to go to the beaches until 19h like we did, there is no need for the facility as they close at 20h. I would stay in the hotel again if the price is cheap.

We recently returned from a week at Las Motas; unfortunately, despite requesting 3 rooms in near proximity , this did not occur but we got used to the arrangement. The rooms were great, spacious and clean but a locking bathroom door would have been good; just a sliding door which kept sliding open.The shortage of staff was very apparent; those that were there worked so hard but the receptionist appeared to be the cleaner, the bar tender etc. Due to lack of staff there were no snacks or lunch available, no ice creams, very limited bar service. The management must see that this must be causing a loss for the business. Had a pool party on a Sunday for the local community ...all efforts during the week seemed to focus on this day with fab buffet, great dj and music, unicorn floats... Great hotel but more emphasis needed on customer service and more amneties for guests. Lovely village, great bakers and restaurants and good location for beaches.

My purpose is to comment the very high quality of the restaurant food. We’re in a 2-star hotel but the food is of the utmost quality. Bravo! I’ve read some pretty average reviews on this website but they are certainly outdated. The young chef does exceptionnally well and takes great care in preparing food of the highest order on a shoestring budget. I highly recommend you pay a visit, whether or not staying in the hotel. Exceptional value for money.