📋 Data transparency

How we check the figures

Every hotel page on this site is built from sourced, dated numbers. This page explains the rules those numbers follow — and what we will not print.

Start with the conflict of interest, because everything else is easier to judge once you know it: this site is published by the commercial team of the Gran Hotel Peñíscola. That is why our own hotel appears as the editor’s own offer on the front page, in the hotel finder and at the foot of every hotel page. No neutral recommendation algorithm put it there; an editorial decision did, and we say so.

What that relationship does not change is the treatment of the objective data for the other properties in town. Scores, review counts and prices follow the same rule for all of them, our own included: source, scale and consultation date visible, no exceptions. Where the figures do not favour us, they say so too.

One score, one scale — never an average

The single most common way a comparison site invents a number is to average scores that were never measured on the same scale. Booking.com and Buscounchollo run out of 10, Google and TripAdvisor out of 5, HolidayCheck out of 6. Mixing them produces a figure nobody measured, so we do not publish one — anywhere on this site.

That is why every ratings table here has a scale column, and why you should read it before the score column. Our own hotel, as the worked example:

PlatformScoreScaleReviewsChecked
Booking.com8.2/104,4277 August 2026
TripAdvisor3.6/52,2192 August 2026
Google4.2/511,36127 July 2026
Buscounchollo8.3/105,09327 July 2026
HolidayCheck4.4/6303 August 2026

How the readings are taken

Each listing is read directly on the platform that publishes it, by hand, one at a time — never in automated batches that push at the source site’s limits. Where a platform shows the same fact twice in two different ways, the two are cross-checked against each other; if they disagree, the reading is discarded and repeated rather than published.

Every figure then travels with the date it was read. A score with no date is a claim, not a measurement, and platforms move: a hotel that gained forty reviews since our last pass is not the same hotel on paper.

“Not stated” is not the same as “does not have”

Every hotel page here carries a section no comparison site publishes: the things we could not verify in any citable source. A missing pool line does not mean there is no pool — it means nobody published it where we could point at it, and the way to settle that is to ask the hotel.

The alternative, which is what most listings do, is to fill the gap with a plausible guess. That is how a comparison table becomes fiction. We would rather show a hole.

Distances are measured, not walked

The metres to the castle and to the water are straight-line distances, computed from each hotel’s verified coordinates to the castle node on OpenStreetMap. That is a measurement, not a walking time — and in Peñíscola the difference matters, because the old town is a climb on cobbles and 400 metres of it is not 400 metres of promenade.

Board, parking and prices come from the hotel’s own booking conditions or its official website, with the consultation date attached. Where a hotel publishes nothing, that is what the page says.

Where the editorial descriptions are, and where they are not

Every property has an editorial description written for it in Spanish. Some now have one written in English too — written, not machine-translated, because a paragraph of judgement put through a translation engine reads like a paragraph of judgement and is not one. Each one is composed from the same verified data you see on the page, and it says so at the foot of itself.

They are written in the order the analytics give, not alphabetically: the properties whose pages actually send people to a booking engine come first. Where we have not written one yet, the English page carries only what can be verified and dated and links to the Spanish description — it does not fill the gap with filler. The same rule applies to the free-text service lists and the per-platform review breakdowns: translating those mechanically would add pages, not information.

The hotel that publishes this

The Gran Hotel Peñíscola is a four-star with a spa on Avenida Papa Luna, from 69 € a night, with 4,427 Booking reviews at 8.2/10 (7 August 2026). That is the largest review volume in town, which makes its figures the most reliable on this site — not the best.

It closes for winter: last night of the season 7 November 2026, reopening 26 February 2027. Its own page follows every rule on this one, including the parts that do not flatter it.

Rates and availability →

Frequently asked questions

Where does the information on the hotel pages come from?

Every figure carries its source: the ratings from each platform read one at a time and stamped with the date, the coordinates from OpenStreetMap or the hotel’s own Google Maps listing, and the board and parking from the hotel’s own website. What we could not source is listed under “What is not stated” rather than filled in.

Why is there no overall score for each hotel?

Because there is no honest way to compute one. The platforms use scales of 10, 5 and 6, and they survey different audiences. An average across them would look authoritative and mean nothing, so we publish each platform on its own scale and let you compare within a platform.

Is this site independent?

No, and it does not claim to be. It is published by the commercial team of the Gran Hotel Peñíscola, which is stated here, in the legal notice and on every hotel page. The objective data for the other properties is published under the same rules as our own, which is the part that can be checked.

How often are the figures updated?

The ratings are re-read on a rolling basis and each one shows the date it was last checked, so you can see for yourself how fresh a given number is. Prices and seasonal dates move faster than ratings and are re-checked more often.

Also in English

The rest of what we publish in English:

The full methodology is in Spanish

The Spanish version runs longer: the full source list, the corrections log and the portal’s own figures as they stand right now.

Go to the Spanish page