Jan 2012 - Just arrived back from Gardenia Park the hotel is very clean but in need of a refurbishment. The staff are very friendly and the cleaners work exceptionally hard. The real let down is the food it is really really awful out of 10 days the food was hottish 3 days. The desserts are worse than awful there is soggy cake, 3 types of mousse, jelly, melon or battered and bruised fruit.
My husband is in a wheelchair and they gave us a disabled room with walk-in shower, it was a lovely room, but the hotel is on a hill there is a bus stop outside going one way but if you need to go the other way the bustop on the otherside is up hill. If you walk out of the back of the hotel the pavements are so bad that you cannot push the chair along them. Also the wait for lifts in the hotel, to go to the restaurant or bar/concert room, were dire sometimes you were waiting 15/20 minutes.
There is no hairdryer in the room or in any of the communal toilets so you either need to tak your own or walk around with wet hair (and come home with a cold like I did).
The entertainment at night was awful, a quiz, bingo, and disco (music from the 50/60's - like Doris Day) every night.
Anyone under 60 would feel out of place here. Too far out of town for any nightlife.

We stayed here in January 2012 so it was off season, and that should probably be taken into consideration as during high season I expect we might have had a different experience, e.g. more facillities available such as the indoor pool/jacuzzi, and more young people around! As it was, we were prepared for the 'Spanish pensioners' and average food having read the reviews here, so our expectations weren't that high and we had a great time overall.

We were really happy with our room which was room 716 - 2 separate bedrooms each with 2 single beds, very clean throughout and cleaned every day, a sun-trap balcony with furniture and lovely view of the sea and over the town (and the bull on the hill!), lovely bathroom with a huge mirror (but dodgy strip lighting that makes you look a bit dead) a table and armchair, 2 wardrobes, a safe and a telephone. It was basic but more than adequate. The TV got 3 British channels (BBC1, ITV and BBC3) - it is described as satellite TV but don't expect a huge SKY package or anything! There was a german channel and one in French, 3 English and the rest Spanish, but we watched some funny Spanish quiz shows and German I'm a Celebrity!

There are 3 lifts, all of which hold about 4 people and all of which are very busy all the time. That can't be avoided really, but we did walk DOWN (not up) 7 flights instead of waiting at times. They could probably do with a little modernising, but the same could be said of the whole place really. It's a bit 90s. Easier said than done though.

The food...lots has been said about the food and I can't say it was spectacular, but it wasn't so bad. I don't think you can go to Spain and expect them to have all your favourite foods from home cooked just as we like it, on a scale large enough to feed the hotel. Bearing that in mind, we really liked some of the 'Spanish' foods (in the smaller counter) which were a bit more exotic. I didn't have anything really truly awful, although I will add that I had a particularly large chunk of chicken which was still a bit pink in the middle - I guess as it was larger than all the other pieces. Breakfast was fine - selection of cereals, breads, fruits, and standard 'fry up' food - sometimes sausages, sometimes potato 'churros' (that's how I described them) and always streaky crispy bacon, which I have to say wasn't worth bothering with if like me you like to cut all the fat off it! Drinks at breakfast were assorted juices, water or coffee/tea/hot chocolate. Lunches usually had some kind of paella or savoury rice, vegetables, lots of salads, breads, fruits etc. At dinner there was always a fish option and a meat option, a pasta option, various vegetables, salad and the ever-present chips, gravy and tomato sauce. Desserts were various flavoured mousses (think Angel Delight) and various flavoured jelly (they were actually VERY VERY NICE!), some fruits and some little slices of cake. Overall, the food was fine. just don't expect michellin stars - think more 'school canteen'.

Entertainment - as I said, we were off season, and I would hope that when the average age of the hotel guest was less than 93, they would provide some different entertainment. Daytime activities were things like darts, bowling and other games like that. Evening entertainments were "live music" (think Margarita Pracatan!) which the Spanish pensioners got up to waltz and line-dance around to (which was actually very entertaining!), bingo, a "quiz" with about 10 questions, "true or false" and the 'disco' - I didn't witness the disco but I have a suspicion it wouldn't have been my idea of a disco... All the entertainers spoke both English and Spanish so that wasn't a problem.

Due to the entertainment in the bar every night, and the fact that it was usually cold in there, we didn't want to spend much time there and therefore didn't make the most of our all-inclusive drinks. The bar was closed at dinner time, and the only drinks available in the restaurant at that time were red or white wine (on a pump) or water. It would have been nice to have drinks from the bar in the restaurant, but this bar was only open at lunch times! I will say that we did get very good measures of booze when we did get an alcoholic drink - they used tall glasses and filled them, even with spirits like Baileys! Very nice :) They also had a great selection of drinks - lots of choice. No real ale though if you're into that. I will add that the Spanish supermarkets have very cheap booze though, so we ended up buying our own to take up to the room.

The location of the hotel is brilliant for the beach and shops, and public transport links. It is a little out of the way of the centre of Fuengirola and the shops and bars there, but not so bad. It has it's own bus stop right outside, and the one across the road outside the vet takes you into Fuengirola centre, where we went to the Miramar Park shopping mall, and the Biopark zoo - both worth a visit, especially the zoo with the gorgeous white tiger and the lemurs! The train station is a 5 minute walk away (you might need to ask for directions at reception) and from there you can get to Malaga (We went. We wished we hadn't bothered) and the airport as well. We said that if we went there again we would get the train from the airport rather than pay extra for the hotel transfer bus, as it's really that convenient and only about 4 euros.

We both said we would go back again, perhaps at a different time of the year when there was more to do.

Stayed here in September for a week, the best thing about this hotel is the rooms they were very clean and the gardens are lovely. but that's about it, the entertainment was rubbish, the food was absolutely disgusting, after 2 days of eating there or rather picking bits n pieces that seemed edible we both ended up with bad stomachs we don,t take ice in drinks either to try n avoid upset stomachs. We both drank water (bottled) and ate just toast for 24 hrs n got better quickly decided not to eat at hotel for the rest of our stay and were fine ate at various different places n had some lovely meals so the a.i for us was a total waste of money. Not enough staff serving in the bar so there was always a long queue stood 15 mins one night waiting to be served!! would i recommend staying at the gardenia park?? DEFINATLY NOT!!

just spent a week in january 2012... lots of spanish senior citizens( 80% of hotel) come down to learn how to ball-room dance here in winter , plus quite a few over 65's for 1- 3 months from the uk...nice and clean hotel with a fantastic sea view ! not a great hotel for young children, but a nice break from the uk to get some nicer weather....top tip ..if you like walking, walk right out the the sea front side of the hotel and you can walk all the way on the flat promenade to the castle and back , great excercise and about 4-5 miles !
food gets boring quick but is still edible and the san miguel is quite good on draft !