My wife and I stayed at the Saray for eight nights in late August this year. We booked through Hotels.com and paid an average of £40 per night for a double room.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and thought the Saray Hotel suited our purpose ideally and was excellent value for money. The winning factor for us was the fabulous water garden and teraces and cool pool essential in August with temperatures of 80+. It's a proper pool you can swim in !!! Quiet edge of town location.

It is located just off the inner ring road near the Congress Hall with a small park, supermarket and shops (and internet Cafe) all nearby.Town bus tours start at the roundabout at the roundabout 5 minutes walk.

The 10 minute walk into town is along the Carrea de Gentil a marble surfaced wakway which is the main promenade for the locals evening stroll and is close to the best depatment store in town; Cortes di Ingles ??

Hotel staff are helpful but their English is limited so comminication on all but routine matters is poor but that's the price you pay for getting away from our fellow Britons and seeing some culture.

On reception the tall dark one with the deep voice seemed to be have a personal crusade to discourage people from visiting the Alhambra!!! Seemed incapable of mentioning the Bono Touristica an all inclusive tourist ticket at 22 E each ;well worth while. Book the Alhambra at The Royal Palace next door to the Cathedral.

Adequate room on 7 th floor had limited window space but views of Alhambra. House keeping spot on.

As for the entry from the member from London ( Beware ......!!) I was unaware that it is the responsibilty of the Hotel to look after or manage the itineray of an 8 month old child. Might have used his intelligence and checked its location on map before booking. Would a city centre location have solved his problems???

Breakfast buffet was acceptable for 8 E with a good range of cold meats, fruits, cereal cooked items.Would have liked to see a good selection of fresh (not tinned fruit) which is abundant and cheap.Bacon is always stringy in Spain.

Poolside dining available but service can be slow.

Very good but with a few tweaks could be superb
(for the money )

richard@brown4429.freeserve.co.uk

In Granada the Spaniish tend to be reluctant in making approaches and this was evident at reception. However the staff were courteous and helpful. The Hotel bedrooms are very comfortable and clean but do not expect choice of TV channels. For the English it is CNN news only.
Food was first class and the soups inspireing - a must be tried experience.
Allthough children are made welcome at the hotel it is not ideal in this respect and the pool is rather deep for youngsters.
In terms of location for exploring the Granada area there are no problems. Access to the main roads is reasonably easy and within one hour you could be walking in the mountains or on the beach.
All in all this is a very good city hotel with very minor critical points.

Before launching a tirade, I will say the hotel itself is nice. Its spacious with a nice pool. Rooms are OK sized, but the windows are tiny so you dont get much natural light in, so it appears smaller and pokey than it actually is. The bar is OK and the restaurant (I use the word loosely) is more of a canteen. Breakfast buffets are nice.

The main problem is the hotel is in the middle of nowhere. Its 1-2 km from city centre. There is nothing around there. If you think you may be hotel bound during the day, there is literally nothing around it. It is real siesta land with absolutely everything closed. Also the local area is very build up (housing estates etc) so its depressing walking around).

We had an 8 month old with us and realised that with her timings we sould be stuck there with nothing to do during the day (unless we wanted to spend €5-10 and 20 mins in traffic every morning).

We told reception our concerns and the first guy we spoke to agreed that the main centre was 20-25 mins away (with buggy) and that nothing was open during the day. We told him we were chekcing out the next day.

When it came to check out, we got a different bloke who decided to read us the riot act and threaten to charge us for our whole reserved stay. He also disagreed with everything the first guy said and reckoned you can walk 2 km with an 8 month old in the middle of the summer sun in 5 mins !!!! We werent helped by the reservations manager every now and again whispering to this guy what other reasons we couldnt check out for. We were threatened with being charged for commission to hotels.com, to penalty fees etc.

Sorry Saray, but hotels are customer services based businesses. When you're guests need assistance, ranting on doesn;t help anyone. Do you really want peed off guests staying ??

Eventually they relented and let us check out. This was more to do with my 8 month screaming and other guests wondering what grief reception was giving us.

If you are young free and single (like I used to be) you'll be Ok here. If travel is in anyway a bit of a hassle, then this isnt the place for you.

This hotel was recommended to us by a local Granada group, and I was stunned at how posh and deluxe it was, for the price that was paid. (It was around 64 Euros per night for a 2-adult room). From top to bottom, we totally enjoyed staying here. The facade and exterior are magnificent (the elevators, and the Muslim/Islamic (moorish) architecture. The rooms were a very good size (they were suites with an extra room having a 2nd tv and a sofa). The breakfast cost per person 8 Euros, but it was pleasant. It had most standard fare, although I would have liked bagels.

Coming back to the room after a day of sightseeing and travelling was a welcome experience. Maid service was good, and front desk staff was courteous and helpful. It was a slight irritation that no iron was provided (hotel staff said it was against local law to have it in hotel, so we accepted that). Compared to the prices and quality we got from London hotels, this place was a God-send, and a wonderful stay. I'd highly recommend it anytime.

The rooms were nice and quiet (totally clean -- it looked new, maybe it was recently refurbished or is a new hotel), the a/c worked great, and the beds (sheets, pillows, mattress) were all comfortable.

Regarding proximity, it is a bit away from the city center (around 10 blocks maybe?) so as i was with older adults and family (plus child), we took a taxi from the airport to the Alhambra and other sites (this would cost 4 euros + 1 euro tip = 5 euros). Not bad given it was also a good way to see the city.