Botanico Hotel & The Oriental Spa Garden

Taxi fom the South Airport costs about €115 to the hotel. Taxis are efficient but none of the drivers are very friendly except one chap who was from Slovakia. Taxi from the hotel into Puerto itself is about €4 or €5.
Location is good in La Paz about 15 minutes walk from the main promenade and seafront at Puerto de la Cruz itself. About 5 minutes walk to a street just behind the main road where there are a selection of cafes, restaurants and shops. Most restaurants are geared to the large German tourist element in this area but all also have menus in English with the main fare being sausages, spaghetti, fish dishes and steaks. There is also a small shopping centre just to the right of the hotel with a decent supermarket inside.
Loro Parque (15 mins in a taxi) is worth a day's visit for the sealion show and the dolphins and whales. They have an option tha you can buy tickets for a return visit before you leave for just another €10. It's a good park but a little bit overpriced and the shops inside it are not very good at all. Still worth a visit though.
The food in the hotel is good but very expensive. The breakfast buffet is about the best we've ever seen with an amazing variety of food to choose from. There is also a similar large variety lunch buffet available but it's €25 each excluding drinks.
The room was fine but not too large. Large bathroom with good facilities and two sinks. I found the beds to be a bit uncomfortable (might just be me) as the doubles are two singles pushed together with single bed linen on each.
The reception staff are very friendly and helpful as are the door staff and the porters and the bar and restaurant waiters. The room service was reasonably prompt but on the 4 occasions that we called the room service number it just rang and rang without being answered and every time we had to call reception instead.
The Oriental Restaurant looked ok but they wouldn't let me in there as I was wearing shorts and not long trousers. I decided to eat out instead on principle!
The Spa looks very good and has good facilities but the Spa staff are some of the rudest and most unfriendly I have ever met. They make you feel like you are interrupting their busy conversations with each other and give short and not very hepful answers to questions. Be aware that they don't let children anywhere near the Spa and look horrified if you even go near the entrance with a child! When I first went to the Spa I spoke to the receptionist there who asked me to wait for someone to give me a guided tour of the facilities. A lady came and took me down to the Spa area itself and promptly described everything in Spanish to me which I don't speak or understand. I asked her to speak in English and she said sorry that she didn't speak any English. This was just bizarre when every other person working in the hotel seemed to speak great english and the lady on reception knew that I spoke english.
The best bit of the hotel is the outside swimming pool at the back which does allow children in it too. It's heated and has a large shallow end before it gets too deep for the non-swimmers. There are loungers all around it for the adults to chill out / read books/ drink a beer or glass of wine.
Despite the poor quality of staff at the Spa I would still recommend the hotel as a very nice option if you just want a very nice, high quality place to stay with a great breakfast and a decent pool for the kids to play in.