The catch at Gran Hotel Taoro

Every Deluxe room and both Junior Suites carry the same line on the hotel's own room pages: balcony subject to availability and at an additional cost. That covers the four Deluxe categories, which are the bulk of the 199 rooms, and it means the room you book at the Garden, Mountain, Ocean or Panoramic rate is sold as a window, not a terrace. The first category that lists a private balcony as included is the 62 square metre One Bedroom Suite, and for 9 to 11 February 2027 that was 385 euros a night against 259 for the Panoramic Deluxe, both Early Booking with breakfast.

The hotel does not publish what the balcony supplement costs or how many rooms have one, so you find out when you ask. Guests report small windows, which the listed facade dictates, so without a balcony the view is framed tighter than the photographs.

The Taoro reopened on 20 October 2025 and the Sandára wellness centre followed in spring 2026, so the earliest guests stayed in a hotel that was still finishing itself. Reviews score it highest for service, cleanliness and sleep and lowest for value, and value is the gap this paragraph lives in. Guests report arrival that is hard to navigate, unclear directions to parking and reception, restaurant service that stalls when one tablet takes every order, wine prices that feel steep, and dishes on the half board menus that carry a supplement.

The food offer is also thinner than five restaurants suggests on any given night. OKA closes on Mondays and Tuesdays, LAVA runs Tuesday to Saturday with eighteen covers, and only Amalur serves dinner every night. Half board, which the hotel says covers those three, cost 109 euros a room a night more than bed and breakfast on the February dates.

The hotel stands on its terrace in Parque Taoro at about 99 metres above sea level; Plaza del Charco, the centre of the old town, sits at about 11. On foot from the hotel door it is 836 metres and 12 minutes to the plaza and 16 minutes to Calle San Felipe in La Ranilla, where the restaurants worth the trip are, and every one of those metres is downhill on the way out and uphill on the way home. Guests do walk it in daylight; most take a taxi back after dinner.

A car helps but has its own line item. The hotel's FAQ prices private, supervised parking at 20 euros a day, says there is no airport shuttle, and the drive to La Ranilla is six minutes each way. By car, Tenerife Norte is 27 minutes away and Tenerife Sur, where most low-cost flights land, 71.

Puerto de la Cruz sits on the wet side of the island, under the trade-wind cloud that stacks against the Orotava valley through the afternoon. That greenery in every photograph of the hotel's gardens is the evidence. The south of Tenerife was built on the other side of Teide precisely because the sun is more reliable there, and the Victorians came to the Taoro for a mild winter, not a tan. The hotel's own FAQ lists two heated pools for adults and one for children, and the word heated is doing real work in February.

There is no beach. The sea is a view from the terrace, not somewhere you walk into from the garden, and the pools are the swimming.

Every Deluxe room sleeps two adults and one baby; the room pages give no option for a child in a cot beyond infancy. Sandára admits guests from 16, LAVA from 12 and OKA from 4, on their own pages. There is no kids' club. The hotel also sells a Family Room with Balcony that the rooms page does not list at all, with no published size or view and a non-refundable condition on both rates, at 338 euros a night on the February dates. Guests report the absence of a children's menu and a pool atmosphere that discourages play. None of this is unreasonable for a restored grand hotel; it just means the family holiday in the brochure is not this one.