Reception unhelpful, Food not the standard one would expect of a 2 star hotel,. Rooms small and in the summer very hot (over 30 C), Very noisy at night popular with the young party goers.
i stayed with my girlfriend, the reception stay are useless and rude, the cleaners tried to make me and my girlfriend clean our room when we were about to leave by staning in the doorway and refusing to move while being agressive, food is low standard to say the least, but expected for the price, and the room was acceptable for the price although extremely bare, the rest of the hotel amenaties were also limited , the only friendly and usefull person who worked there was Manolo who is in charge of the bar, the bar itself is not exiting with two damaged pool tables,, if you are looking for something basic only one step up from a hostel on a budget then this is ideal, other than that i would avoid in future, i would give this hotel 1 and a half stars as it serves its perpose relative to the price
This is a very basic hotel, the rooms are small and dated, maid service erratic, cleanliness poor. Buffet continental breakfast and buffett lunch and dinner very basic fare and you are expected to clear your own table - worse than school dinners. The hotel caters to mostly Spanish tourists and groups of German schoolchildren. The Reception staff are very surly and unhelpful. The pool which is on the roof terrace is not clean.The best thing about the Hotel is Manolo who runs the bar along with his wife, he will give you any help and information you require. This Hotel is not suited to British holiday makers, there is no entertainment and no British TV channels for wet days. I would not recommend staying at the Continental unless you were on a very limited budget.
This is more of a review of the other reviews about this hotel.
I have to say, I think the 3 (english) reviews have been grossly unfair to the continental. Were you all aware that this hotel was 2 Star?
Firstly, the issue with transfers is completely irrelevant (not the hotel's responsibility).
Most of the staff spoke little english but this doesnt make them rude (by the same rule, we are rude for not speaking spanish). I found most of the staff helpful and willing to assist where possible. All it took was a little patience and some hand gestures.
The rooms were on the small side but very clean and comfortable, once again i should point out that it is a 2 star hotel, you cant expect a penthouse. Yes it is an old fashioned style of hotel, but I could argue that it is a truer reflection of real spain in the old town of Calella (some people crave such an experience)
The dining experience was a little strange in that it was done in 2 sittings with designated times. This isnt ideal but for a hotel with a large number of rooms and a smallish dining area, I can understand why this was necessary. The food was hot and edible with daily variations. i didnt recognise at all the descriptions from the other reviews. Incidentally, i was allocated an 8pm table, however I asked to be moved to the 7pm and it was done with no fuss whatsoever. (Les and Margaret, if your reading this, I'm sure you'll concur?)
The other ludicrous charge against it was that it doesnt cater for British guests. Well all I can say to that is, no British tour operator uses this hotel, if they had then i'm sure there would be. Very few British guests were there during my stay so its not surprising that the hotel orientates towards Germans or Spaniards (hardly rocket science folks)
The only slight issue i had with the hotel (which again isnt the hotel's fault) was its proximity to the resort centre. However, this really wasnt a problem as it was a 20 minute stroll or a ride on he mini train which runs every 20 mins.
To conclude, this hotel is excellent value for a 2 Star and if anybody has booked into it, after paying the peanuts that it costs to stay there, then turns round and complains, is out of order. If you want 3 or 4 star, then pay the extra.
A thumbs up to low budget accomodation
Just back form a week staying in Continental Hotel and i would not return!
I read some negative reviews online before i went so i had mentally prepared myself for the worst!
The actual rooms are ok - they are clean and we had fresh towels every day. The views from the (very small) balconies are not great, but the hotel is located very close to the main street where all the bars and restaurants were, and also to the beach (which is only about 5 minutes walk).
I think the main problem i had with the hotel is the food. Breakfast was pretty basic, which i didnt mind, but the dinners very truly awful! Put it this way - the best dinner i had when i was there was fish fingers and chips! It was like bad school dinners, and you had to clear your plate after you ate (kind of like eating at MacDonalds!) The dining rooms is also in the basement with no natural light, so the general dining "experience" is not that enjoyable!
We also noticed that most of the other guests were young germans - so you sort of felt like you were on a school trip!
Whatever you do - do not take your bag to the pool!! For some unknown reason this is not allowed and we got a good telling off for breaking the rules! After this happended we decided not to use the pool again and just went to the beach.
The other thing is that they don't provide anywhere for you to leave your bag on your day of departure (we had to check out at 10am and were not getting collected until 6pm) so basically you have to pay to keep your room on or take your bags with you all day (which i have to admit we did because we really didnt want to give them any more money!)
On the positive side, there is a very nice barman Manolo. His wife also works there, and we found them both to be very friendly and helpful (there is also one nice receptionist - but rest of the staff pretty rude!)
My advise would be to not stay at the Continental, and if you are reading this and have already booked - just use your room as a base like we did. There are plenty of nice places to eat in the town (very reasonable priced) and a few good bars (check out the Beach Boys & The Golden Gloves!)
Enjoy!
My friend and I have just got back from a week in Calella staying at this 1970's throwback hotel.
We arrived in Calella at 11pm, & the airport transfer dropped us at the top of the road about five minutes walk from the hotel due to the minivan being unable to access the one way street where the hotel is situated. Usually this wouldn't have been a problem, but we were dropped off and told to just follow the road down until we saw the sign. It was really intimidating to say the least, being two young girls in an unusual place and having to find our own way through the backstreets of Calella, it wasn't exactly what we were expecting.
When we arrived at the hotel, there was a large Spanish guy sitting on the front steps, my friend and I, struggled to get our cases up the steps to the hotel entrance and he just looked at us. (Oh I noticed that there was no disabled access around the hotel either.)
We then went to check in, the same guy who was sat on the steps took his time to read our information and spent a good 10 minutes examining our passports and shaking his head, he made no attempt to help us or even be polite. He then forced the key into our hands along with a card which said our allocated breakfast & dinner times, and without us receiving any information or welcoming into the hotel, we figured out ourselves where our room would most likely be, as they failed to give us any direction to where our room was.
The room was clean, but small and the view from our balcony was Spanish housing with bins placed directly under our balcony.
We then decided we needed a safe, so we went down and he couldn't understand what we were talking about (we literally had to mime putting money in a box!)
They told us it was 18euro deposit, but at the end of the holiday only received 6euro back.
The breakfast consisted of salami, ham, cheese & bread. Being a vegetarian I decided to skip breakfast after the first day. The restaurant staff were equally as ridiculously rude; they shouted at me on my first day for not wearing a suitable top, they then shouted at us for sitting at the wrong table, and as we were late coming down for our meal, they told us we had five minutes to eat then we had to get out! The food in the evening was cheap, basic and bland, it was unlabeled and when asked what the food was the chef responded with ‘it’s very good, eat’.
The hotel is full of young Germans, Spanish, Italian and every other European nationality bar the English. The majority of them were really rude towards the English aswell.
The pool was dirty, small and cold. The pool bar only sold icecreams & crisps, and you're not allowed to take your own food or drink up. They ran out of water half way through the week, but we still got told to dispose of our own water when we tried to take it up.
The maid's idea of cleaning a room appears to be making the bed. We only recieved fresh towels and sheets once during our week stay.
However, all this seemed like nothing compared to what happened to us on our last day.
Our flight wasn't until the evening, and as noone in the hotel spoke English, we couldn't find out what time we had to check out by, or where to store our cases & whatnot, so we packed and left our cases in our room. It got to about 1pm, and we were about to make our way up to the pool when we heard the manager banging on our door. When we answered it he barged straight in demanding 50euro for keeping the room for an extra 3 hours. (We didn't have 50euro left between us so we couldn't pay him) When he realised we couldn't afford it he snatched my friend’s bag and went to walk out the door, we grabbed the bag off him and he went to hit my friend. So we threw the last of our money at him (30euro between us) and he demanded the extra 20 by 7pm.
We were both extremely shaken up by this incident and left the hotel immediately refusing to pay the extra 20euro. We are currently trying to get in touch with the agency and are taking this further.
Don't stay at this hotel seriously.
