Rubimar Aparthotel

This has got to be the worst hotel I have ever visited, I went on a two week all inclusive holiday with my sisters and our husbands, we were not advised before we left that this hotel was just moving from Self Catering to All inclusive, and boy I wish I had, they had no idea how to run it as All Inclusive, this should of been sorted before they started letting guests into the hotel.

The staff were very rude and very ignorant, they either just ignored you, walked away, or if you asked for help or advice they just laughed in your face, or got the manager and he threatened to throw you out.

The food was stone cold, they had not variety it was either chips, chips or more chips for breakfast, dinner and tea.

They had salad with no meat to go with it, the hot plates only warmed the bottom of the food and not the top as they had nothing on top of the hot plate.

It has to be the worst holiday that I have ever had to encounter, i ended up in tears, and obviously as I complained and asked for something other than chips the manager threatened to throw me out of the hotel!!!!!! 3 days before the end of my trip.

Our first stay at the Rubimar although we have stayed in Playa Blanca 5 times before. The resort is excellent for a quiet family getaway. The Rubimar is at the Rubicon Marina end of the resort which is served by many excellent restaurants - although a bit more pricey than the ones in town (20 min walk away). Would definitely recommend Lani's Restaurant right on the Marina front - good quality food & excellent service. There are also a couple of well stocked supermarkets near by & a crazy golf course.

The Rubimar is a small aparthotel so there is no fight for sunbeds - plenty available every day even though it was August. The swimming pool though is freezing (& salt water) & they only use the heated indoor pool in winter. There is a small playground & tennis court & free table tennis table. There are a couple of pool tables inside the poolside bar but they didn't work for some of the time.

The apartment was very spacious (one of the few 2 bed ones). We had to pay a returnable deposit for the TV control & air conditioning remote control (20 Euros for each). The beds though weren't that comfortable & the futon style sofa bed was quite hard & my 9 year old son couldn't wait for his own bed again. The apartment was quite well equiped, but the only glasses were tall stemmed wine ones or small fruit juice glasses. With 3 young children, I would have liked to see some tumbler ones as was worried they would break them.

On our first morning we were woken by the boiler failing & water leaking out of it making quite a flood. The hotel were very good & cleaned it up & replaced the boiler within a couple of hours & even let us eat breakfast for free in the Restaurant. The food was ok but did not encourage us to eat there again - too many other better places nearby & in town. Found out that quite a few of the apartments had trouble with their air-conditioning units leaking - ours did once. The maintenance men seemed to be rushed off their feet.

Overall the Rubimar is in a great location, but considering it was only built 4 years ago, does look like it could do with updating & a lick of paint in places. Even though I have mentioned quite a few negatives, it did not spoil our holiday & I would consider going back. Playa Blanca is a great resort for children with great beaches.

We have just returned from a two week stay at the Rubimar apartments in Playa Blanca. The hotel is great and the rooms are a great size. Kitchen does not have enough things to cook proper meals but does have a toaster and microwave. We normally go to Greece so this room was like a palace compared to what we are use to.

Be warned there seems to be allot of maintenance work going on at the hotel and there are lots of dumper trucks and diggers, which can be quite noisy while you sit by the pool. The baby pool was also shut, as there was something wrong with the pump.

Don't buy drinks or ice cream from the pool bar, as it is very expensive nearly 10 euros for 4 ice creams. We use to buy ours from the supermarket next door. We also took our own drinks to the pool to save money.

The gym is really good we used in every day, it gets quite busy in about 10am with local people but they mainly use the weights.

It was our first time to playa Blanca so we did not know what to expect, I would say it is going to be a great resort when it is finished but my only real moan is the price of eating out. The restaurants are charging top prices for low quality food. If you are looking to eat out every night be prepared to part with allot of money. Also there is not much choice in food mainly pizza or pasta.

The pizza place which is joined on to the Rubimar is very nice but make sure you check your bill. We were told children could have anything on the menu for half the price but this was not the case when we got our bill, also we were charged for a meal we did not have.

The New Orleans Restaurant on the way to Playa Blanca is very good but the service is sometimes a bit slow. Lannis snack bar is the best value for money, very quick service and big portions, don't confuse this with Lannis Bar and Grill. The French patisserie next to the Marina does fab cakes and quiche's to take away.

It is a great resort if you have very young children as you can let them walk along the walkway to playa Blanca in the evening with out worrying about traffic.

We've just returned from a very pleasant week at the Aparthotel Rubimar. About a 25 minute walk from the main part of this spread out resort, the Rubimar is however only seconds away from the new Rubicon Marina.

At first we were put into a ground floor room with no balcony and only one window which, along with it's adjoining door, gave an excellant view of the complex's rather cavernous maintenance room complete with piles of breeze blocks and attendant machinery. There were several other rooms with similarly questionable location.

So we complained and were ultimately moved to a much nicer pad with a balcony and lots of natural daylight. The place is scrupulously clean with both a heated indoor and (unheated) outdoor swimming pool. The rooms have aircon and are quite spacious and comfortable and there's a restaurant on site (didn't try as Playa Blanca has many good eateries) and a poolside bar. All in all a good holiday.

We stayed at the Rubimar apts from 30th Dec to 6th Jan . The apartments were very large, clean and in a great position - only 2mins from the Rubicon Marina and a 20 min walk from Playa Blanca. The walk was lovely and followed the coast around the bay. Halfway you find Playa Dorada beach which is very clean, plenty of sunbeds and beautiful clear sea. There are also a few bars / restaurants here too, an ideal place to re-fuel on your walk!!! Other lovely beaches nearby are the Papagayo beaches, about a 45 min walk along the cliff tops but well worth it. They are uncrowded, unspoilt and beautiful.

We found the Marina lovely with nice restaurants but a bit quiet during the evenings. Only restaurant I would not recommend there is Lani's grill where we spent nearly 3 hours for lunch only to receive the wrong order. Staff were overwhelmed and didn't seem able to cope with a half full restaurant. [This shouldn't be confused with Lani's snack bar which was great] . Little Italy was a lovely restaurant with friendly service and nice surroundings.

We really enjoyed walking into Playa Blanca and there was a nice holiday atmosphere there along with a good selection of restaurants. There are alot of Tapas bars and traditional spanish restaurants which we really enjoyed. I think Playa Blanca is a lovely resort in Lanzarote and certainly disproved any pre-conceptions of Lanzagrotty! We would definately go back and would recommend it as a winter break, the weather was fantastic - sunny and warm enough to swim in the sea. Missing it already.

Just back from spending 3 weeks at the Rubimar, and all in all had a positive experience. I've outlined problems which we encountered with medhotels on our arrival in the main forum so I wont repeat myself here. The reception staff were helpful and did try their best to help out, there were only a couple of minor gripes with this hotel that I'll cover in due course

The hotel highlights:

We stayed in room 244, a lovely apartment with the sun on the terrace all day, and with a sea view in the distance. The rooms were cleaned every day except Sunday, to a good standard.

The bar staff were friendly and helpful

The indoor heated pool which was deserted

The Hotel lows:

2 days without water and with no explanation as to when to expect it back on! Come on management a note would suffice

The bar was empty ALL THE TIME so why did the barstaff keep running out of coke or beer, or even Vodka at one stage!

The outside was a little on the scruffy side despite only being a couple of years old- a bit of TLC would work wonders

Not having the bottle to help us sort out our booking which medhotels [-] up

A word on the resort- Marina Rubicon was a lovely place to stay, only a 10 minute walk from Playa Blanca, the walk is flat and very pleasant. The place was quiet, even over chirstmas and New year which was a very pleasant surprise

There are lots of restaurants to choose from and all reasonably priced. Have to recommend the WOK Steak house which is a chinese restaurant in the Rubimar shopping centre- for people who don't really like chinese, 7 of us ate in there 4 times in a fortnight; the staff were absolute gems and the food was excellent.

Also worth mentioning is Lani's in the marina, both the restaurant and the snack bar- service a little haphazard but done with a smile, and again very reasonable.

In Playa Blanca we had the best meal of our holiday at Typico Canarias (or something like that) situated on the front near to the harbour, a little along from the Old Mill and next to another chinese- the food was out of this world, and the service was very good.

The only place we wouldnt recommend is the Indian restaurant in the High Street in Playa Blanca- we were ripped off for the price of the wine, make sure you have this written in stone before agreeing to buy!

We only used a couple of bars, the only one worth mentioning was the Old Mill which shows footie etc, nice staff.

So to finalise, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the resort- in taking a drive over the whole island, Playa Blanca stood out for me as being the nicest; very low key and with an intimate feel about it. And the Marina Rubicon was a lovely part of Playa Blanca, and not too far to walk if you wanted to go into town. But we are all 30/40 somethings looking for a relazing holiday, so if you were a bunch of teenagers i'd say go to Tenerife.

As for the Rubimar, well if I ever came to playa Blanca again I think I'd prefer to try somewhere else, though the location of the hotel is ideal, and as long as you dont pay lots of money, I don't think you'd be disappointed

A great hotel for your money , in a really good position close to the marina , supermarket , bowling alley and some great restaurants , you really do not need to go into the centre of Playa Blanca at all . We stayed B&B which was perfect for us with two young children , they do cater for us Brits but not entirely but we enjoyed the continental choice too. The bare snacks are an absolute bargain and quite tasty , but the evening buffet was very unimaginative but at just 10 euros per head for all you can eat with children eating free what can you expect , at least give it a try , we did . Apartments are kept very clean and the towels are changed every day and beds are made each day all but one . For your money you can not beat this Hotel we normally stay in Thomson Platinum hotels and are used to a little luxury but we really had no complaints about the Rubimar. Book and enjoy . The stairs can be a problem but if you ask for a ground floor room they will oblige as the staff are very friendly and helpful.

Third time we've been to Playa Blanca but first time we've been to Rubicon Marina. It's about 25 minutes walk from Playa Blanca but all those who know the resort, love the superb promenade. Plenty of good restaurants in the Rubicon Marina that's less than 5 minutes walk from the hotel and kids will love the pizzas at "Little Italy".

We've got 2 young children and they loved the 4 pools in the hotels (children's, main, jacuzzi and the indoor pool). We didn't enjoy the food from the snack bar on our first day so we decided not to take up the hotel's offer of half board of 12 Euros per adult with children free.

Highly recommended as a self catering hotel and give otbeach.com a try as this is the 2nd holiday we've used them and not had any problems.

A lovely hotel set in a very relaxing resort. It was our first time in Lanzarote - Playa Blanca and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quiet and relaxing holiday.

We stayed on a bed and breakfast basis, and were more than happy with the choice of food they offered.

Our room was excellent and cleaned every day. We had a lovely view of the Marina which was a bonus.

There's lots of yummy restaurants around the Marina, which is just as well, as other holiday makers who had booked half board, were not impressed with the hotels evening meals as they were not very hot!

We were really looking forward to our stay but I would never return and here are my reasons

1) When we arrived we have 4 large bags a 2 yr old in a pram and a child of 8 . We were told the lift were broke and were offered no help as they " don't do that" !!

We had to carry all of the above down 2 floors only to find our room was the across the swimming pool and then up two further floors ..

This Lift on our day to return home was STILL broke and so had to do the same over again!

2) are room was very noisy the walls were thin and we had neighbours from hell that argued all the time... I know this isn't the fault of the hotel..we asked to move but were told no rooms free... The hotel was empty so that was rubbish!

3) Breakfast was lots of but very poor quality.. very oily or dry.. chicken nuggets at breakfast?

4) Location was good however advise in December do hire a car as the weather wasn't good so the beach wasn't an option..

Overall Lanzarote was ok , hotel same too... I think in the summer it would be lovely however maybe not a good place for parents with young kids