Aparthotel Columbus, Playas de Las Americas Review

Overall Rating

Location

Service

Columbus Aparthotel Playa de las Americas - Thomson Holidays

My wife and I went to Columbus Aparthotel Playa de las Americas from Feb 15-20, 2008. Tenerife was awesome and beautiful weather everyday and we very much liked the town Playa de las Americas. Lots to see and do. We would recommend anyone to go there however watch out for bad service from the Thomson Holidays Travel agents!!!It is a pain to get the drinks one at a time and they make it very inconvenient. During dinner time you actually have to leave the pool and go down some stairs to the basement to get your drink. We found the hotel clean and our room was a good size (this is coming from people who usually stay in hostels ) However we did NOT like the beds. Every morning we woke up with sore backs due to the low quality beds springs poking us in several uncomfortable places. If you stay here be prepared to catch up on your sleep at the beach

BUT putting the bad beds and annoying drink service aside our biggest disappointment was with the on-site travel agents from Thomson. They are grumpy, rude and difficult to work with and their inability to clearly provide instructions resulted in us missing the bus for our first excursion (simple shuttle bus ride to market) even though we were waiting for it 5 minutes early and in the correct place. According to the Thomson Holidays on site representative the bus driver apparently came out and called for us twice then left us behind. How we missed this bus I will never know since we were sitting on a bench 4ft from the road where all of the other buses stopped. We then took a very fast taxi ride we were surprised to find it only cost us a total round trip cost including tip of 9.50 Euro!!!! LESS than half what the Thomson Holidays on site rep at Columbus Aparthotel was charging! Ridiculous!

. I have experienced MUCH better service and communication skills from a "10-dollar-at-night hostel"'

The other 2 excursions that we took were excellent. One to the Volcano in the center of the island and the other for a round-the-island coastal tour. We would recommend these to others as they were good value but book them through someone other than Thomson to save some grief and extra stress while on your vacation.

Tenerife was a fantastic vacation and it would have been perfect if not for Thomson Holidays being involved.