Well ! What a surprise, lovely clean, basic hotel perfect for our needs.
Free digital safe in the rooms and 24 hour reception, also pay fridge in reception if you want a beer or a coke etc. The rooms were a decent size as well, which I didn't expect. With aircon and a small flat screen TV.
Free breakfast, cereals, toast, fruit, cakes, tea, coffee.
It is situated beneath the hotel Torres, which is closed down, but its if you find Mcdonalds on the main road and walk up the street opposite you will find it, staff were polite and friendly, we had no complaints, and the price was excellent!
10 out of 10 for the free breakfast too.

To be honest, before we left we were dreading arriving at Hotel Manantiales - we booked through Hotels.com and got a really good deal of €15 pppn for a double room with breakfast included.

First impressions of the hotel were poor- dire in fact! I like staying in budget hotels so as to have extra spending money to enjoy myself on holiday but Hotel Manantiales is located on the ground floor of a derelict hotel (I believe its called Torre 3 or something similiar) and as my fellow traveller commented looked like it belonged in a shanty town! However, to our surprise the inside was in stark contrast to the outside.

As this is becoming long winded to bullet point the good and the bad:

Good:
- we arrived early but were able to leave our bags in reception whilst we went out to explore Torremolinos
- rooms are adequate in size, appear to be newly decorated and finished to a good standard. Our bathroom had a good sized shower but was let down by the cheap shower curtain which allowed water to collect on the floor. Each room comes with a coded safety deposit box free of charge and has air conditioning (which is an absolute must!). For added safety there was railings on the window and shutters. Room was cleaned every day and replacement towels, soap and shampoo provided on a daily basis! Sweets were even left in the room for our arrival!
- breakfast was included in the price however was lacking in contrast to other European hotel breakfasts...cereal (2 choices), toast, porridge, cakes, orange juice and tea & coffee facilities
- hotel offers free wifi to all customers as well as providing free Internet access via a computer located at reception
- this hotel is located in Torremolinos centro - within 5 minutes walking distance of the commercial square and about a 20 minute walk from the beach
- this hotel considers itself gay friendly - and is ideally situated within 5 minutes walking distance of a collection of gay pubs and clubs
- this hotel has shared access to a swimming pool located at the top of the building - not ideal for small children as it involves manoeuvring around lots of work tools, building equipment to get to the top - also no life guard


Bad:
- Communication was a major problem - ideally the receptionist should speak some English, especially as this is a holiday resort
- Walls are paper thin and noise can be heard from outside
- TV was in Spanish - not one English/music channel!

- From our viewpoint, Torremolinos is most suited to families and gay & elderly couples...our experience of the nightlife was poor...we ended up spending just over €100 in taxis and train fares going to and fro the 24 hour square in Benalmadena were pubs and clubs were located...to anybody looking for a lively holiday Benalmadena is the spot to book! Even a guy promoting one of the more lively pubs in Torremolinos agreed with our evaluation of Benalmadena!

All in all, this hotel is extremely good value for money....if we could pick it up and drop it in Benalmadena we would have no hesitation in going back but as its located in Torremolinos we would be unlikely to revisit it again as it is just not applicable to our holiday needs.