Hotetur Lanzarote Bay Aparthotel

We have returned from Lanzarote bay recently and fully enjoyed our stay at the complex.
We traveled with a baby and a 4 year old son who both fully enjoyed themselves. The rooms were clean and cleaned every day bar Sunday. Towels were changed every day as were sheets and beds made. The rooms are nothing spectacular but they served there purpose.
The pool area was very nice and my son enjoyed the kids club participating in various activities. The entertainment on the evening also catering for children with a mini disco and games.
The food was again very nice and refreshing with a range of different dishes and choices through out the week.
The staff from the cleaning ladies to the bar people could not do enough for you and they really made the hotel a very pleasant place to be holidaying in.
We only spent a week here in March we had good weather and a really great time.

Holiday fine, booked for 10 days glad we didn’t pay full price, pool does not look like in brochures. Food good, but rooms something to be desired about.
Rooms small can understand that originally self catering with kitchen but beds uncomfortable with the addition of ants in bedroom.
Greeted with cockroach spray in kitchen? Well I have never seen such a big cockroach in my life luckily outside our door, good for us is was outside. Think property needs to be improved alot.

Cant understand some people, what do they expect.
We have just arrived back from the Lanzarote bay and we had the best holiday ever. Our 2 children didn’t want to come home. Hats off to Marcel and Carl the 2 entertainers from the hotel, especially Marcel the Dutch guy he went out of his way to make every one included in the entertainment. The hotel wasn’t very busy as it was January but surely the holiday is what you make it. If you want it to be just like England then I should suggest you stay in England.
The rooms were spacious and cleaned every day. The food was great. I am a funny eater and there was all ways something for me to have, and how many hotels put special diet food out for you to keep healthy. The staff worked long hours and always had smiles in their faces. They have a strict law now that doesn’t let you smoke in the down stairs room so the smokers are away from the children, which is great.
The only bad thing about this holiday is that we had to come home. So all you miserable lot complaining about the Lanzarote bay hotel stay in England cause they don’t need people like you bringing their hotel down. It was great.

The Lanzarote Bay is a big, noisy family-friendly place about 10 minute’s walk from the main ‘square’ in Costa Teguise.
We arrived just after midnight and were quickly given our all-inclusive wristbands and key to the room. When booking I had requested middle-floor, pool view – which was exactly what we got! We were in Block A which is close to the bar, reception and restaurant; Block B is also good, but the rest of the blocks (C, D and E) face away from the pool, with their balconies overlooking either the side road or the tennis courts, so ask for Block A or B if a pool view is important to you. We could also see the sea from our balcony.
The room was spacious with a double bed in the bedroom and two sofa beds in the lounge area. There was plenty of cupboard and wardrobe space, but not very many hangers in the wardrobe; luckily I had taken a load of plastic market-stall hangers with me which I left there for the next guest in the room. The safe is in an awkward place on the floor of the wardrobe under a low shelf, so you have to get down on your hands and knees to use it (cost 44 Euros plus 5 Euros deposit for 2 weeks). The balcony had the usual plastic table and chairs and a little bit of string tied around the railings which had, once upon a time, been a good pull-out clothes airer. Take some washing line with you and tie it around the top of the balcony, then your towels will dry overnight.
There was a little kitchen area in the apartment with a handy fridge but no cups or anything. We nicked some glasses from the bar so we could have a drink of juice or water in the night/early morning. (Buy bottled water from Netto round the corner, then refill your bottles from the drinking-water tap in the bar) There was a can of insect spray for cockroaches/ants etc under the kitchen sink, but we never had to use it! No trouble with mozzies either!
The bathroom was tiny and got steamy after a bath/shower and opening the little window created a wind tunnel in the room if you had the balcony and/or bedroom windows open! You can hire irons, kettles and hairdryers from reception, but we didn’t need any of these things (heat in the air dries your hair and un-creases your clothes; and the only times you can’t get a hot drink are between midnight and 8am when you’re asleep anyway).
Sunbeds are usually chained up overnight and the pool cleaner unlocks them when he is good and ready, anytime between 8 and 9am, so there are crowds of people clutching towels, waiting for the ‘unlocking ceremony’ every morning from about 7.45am onwards.
The blue-and-white stripy canvas beds go quickly, and any positions under/around trees are also grabbed early if there’s a bit of a heatwave! The pool is plenty big enough, with a walk-in shallow section and a deeper part at the other end. The water was a bit cold in the mornings but very welcome in the heat of the afternoon! There is also a separate good-sized paddling pool for babies and toddlers. The pool bar is open from 10am-6pm with snacks available from 10.30-5.30. Watch out for Raul and his flying ice-cubes! Some days the pool snacks are just chips, salad and burgers, but some days they fire up the barbecue, which is very nice indeed!
The food in the main restaurant was very good with plenty of choice for everyone, although it did get a bit repetitive after the first week. Breakfasts were good with a choice of cereals, fruit, yoghurts, cold meats and cheese, bread rolls, toast and the usual bacon, eggs, beans etc. They did proper fried eggs and the chef would insist on frying you a fresh one even though there were ones he’d made earlier keeping warm on the hotplate! Lunch was good, although often similar to the evening meals. Most days we had lunch from the pool snack bar because we couldn’t be bothered getting dry and dressed to go indoors.
Evening meals had plenty for everyone to choose from with soups, bread rolls, hot and cold main courses, meats, vegetables, chips, potatoes, vegetarian options, fruit, ice cream, cakes etc. The chef would always be carving something – roast beef, pork ribs etc and there were several theme nights while we there, including Canarian (our favourite – little salty potatoes with lovely mojo sauce), also Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, Italian etc.
Rafael the manager would always take the time to ask how you were, and all the staff in the restaurant, bars and reception were extremely friendly and helpful and always seemed to be very busy cleaning, sorting out etc, and all seemed very proud of their hotel! Probably the nicest staff we’ve ever had in any hotel! Noise at night is usually just the odd few people having a late drink on the balcony or coming back from a night out – on the whole it is generally silent after about 12.30-1am.
The evening entertainment is in the family Disco Bar which is a crowded hot ‘basement’ under reception. You have to get there about 7pm to get a good seat, and woe betide you if you get someone else’s spot! It was very smoky down there, despite there being ‘No Smoking’ signs all over the place – they really need to make announcements during the evening to remind people about not smoking in the family bar.
The ‘entertainment’ consisted of a kids disco from 8-9pm, followed by the day’s certificate awards and then bingo (sometimes there would also be people with snakes/parrots charging 10 Euros to have your photo taken) The main show started at 10pm-ish and some nights it was a good professional act – ‘Robbie Williams’, ‘Three Degrees’ etc, and other nights the Hoteteur entertainment reps (Annika, Johannes, Tuila etc) would have the kids involved in Grease or a Disney show. It was fairly standard hotel stuff, we’ve seen it all before, so after the first few smoky uncomfortable evenings we didn’t bother going down.
There is also the Captains Bar upstairs (no entertainment) which is strictly adults-only after 9pm. Labbi the barman insisted on several occasions I should take my well-behaved, quiet, sensible teenagers to sit outside even though we were in a quiet corner and not causing a nuisance to anyone.
There were no seats left on the outside terrace by about 8.30pm and certainly no seats in the smoky family bar downstairs after about 7.30ish, so I was a bit annoyed about this – I can understand the need for some ‘adult space’ without screaming toddlers running around, but my kids are young adults and indeed I paid adult price for them to be on the holiday in the first place! They don’t run around squealing and getting under people’s feet, and I don’t see why we should have been asked to move when another family with ever-so-slightly-older teenagers were allowed to stay put!
My main complaint about this hotel was the lack of activities for teenagers. The entire hotel revolves around the under-12s and the Airtours kids club did look really good with lots of stuff to do for that age group. Unfortunately even my youngest was just too old for the club.
There was supposed to be the Airtours ‘Escape’ teenagers club at this hotel in July/August, but it didn’t happen – all they got was the Hoteteur reps doing a quick (and largely unsupervised) game of football (in the blazing heat) or waterpolo for teenagers during the day and nothing for them in the evening. Luckily my kids made some friends and made their own entertainment (mostly playing pool, table tennis and going on the internet – all things you have to pay for) so they had a good time and were upset to go home, but I was really expecting morning-till-night activities for the whole family, not just for the little kids. Another complaint was the morning ‘keep-fit’ session which took place about 11am in the blazing heat in front of the bar – I’m sure Tuila would have had more takers for this activity if it had been aqua-aerobics in the pool!
Kirsty, the Airtours rep was great, worked really hard and was very friendly, she always had time for a chat to find out what you’d been up to around the resort/island and she was there most days for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at teatime. On the days she wasn’t there you could contact her by phone and Neil, the Airtours rep from our coach transfer, would pop in now and again too.
There was also Claire the ‘suncare consultant’, at the hotel, although she seemed more interested in promoting her own American brand of very expensive Aloe-Vera products. One or two people got quite badly sunburnt and she would sell them her ‘recovery gel’ rather than advising them to get to the clinic or chemist for proper medical help.
I got a bit of prickly heat, but I went straight to the chemist for some hydrocortisone steroid ointment and antihistamines which cleared it up very quickly for a fraction of the cost of Claire’s fancy products! Incidentally, Lanzarote is all about Aloe Vera, you will find Aloe Vera products in all the local shops, but if you just want quick relief from slight minor sunburn there are Aloe Vera plants all over the place, just break off a leaf, open it up and rub the green jelly stuff inside onto your skin! Obviously for more severe skin problems you should go straight to the chemist or doctors.
One tip – don’t book this hotel with Cosmos!
We met some nice people there who had booked with Cosmos and they never saw their rep for the whole 2 weeks (apart from the welcome meeting of course) They didn’t even get a rep on their coach to the airport, which arrived 20 minutes late with a grumpy driver who just grunted “Cosmos?” at them… Apparently Cosmos only have 2 reps on the whole island! JMC also take bookings for this hotel but I only saw their rep a couple of times. Best to book with Airtours/MyTravel/Direct Holidays/Panorama – their reps have a strong presence in the hotel and they will see you on and off the coaches at the airport/hotel both there and back.
The excursions sold by Airtours are quite expensive, but some of them looked good and were popular, particularly the Wild Western Night (at Rancho Texas), the Medieval Night, the Submarine Safari, the Catamaran and the Teguise Market trip. I already knew from last year which excursions I wanted so I booked them independently with Lutons Travel (also Last Minute – find their leaflets under rocks all over the resort). We went with Lutons/Last Minute on the Cesar Manrique trip and also their guided tour of Fuerteventura – neither of these trips were available from Airtours, we paid a reasonable price for them, booked with an agent near the Tahiche Apartments and had 2 fantastic days out.
They picked us up from the Playa Bastian bus stop just outside the Lanzarote Bay’s tennis courts. Airtours had a Grand Tour of the island, (volcanoes etc) but we’d done a similar trip last year and we wanted to see more of Cesar Manrique’s influence on the island; Airtours also did a Fuerteventura Cruise, which basically just dumped you over in Corralejo for the day – we wanted a proper tour of the old villages etc. We found Lutons/Last Minute’s trips more to our requirements and the guides on our coaches were great, very informative and interesting!
We did actually go on a couple of Airtours trips – we went to Rancho Texas (the morning trip, not the wild western night) and we went on the Sunday trip, which combines Teguise Market with Guinate Tropical Bird Park. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with this one – there was nothing in the market you can’t buy in resort and you get hassled by the Moroccans; and the Bird Park was small, and poorly kept, but when you’ve seen the spectacular Loro Parque in Tenerife it’s difficult to match up to that standard! Also, the parrot show at the Bird Park was exactly the same as the one at Rancho Texas!
The morning at Rancho Texas wasn’t quite long enough to see the whole park if you wanted to catch all the animal shows while you were there. There was a lasso show, followed by the parrot show and then you walk over to the bird-of-prey show which was fantastic, followed by a very disappointing crocodile ‘show’. The coach goes back to Costa Teguise at 1pm, although you could always have an extra hour in the park and get the coach for Puerto del Carmen at 2pm, have an afternoon shopping in P.D.C. and then make your own way back to C.T. on public transport (2.25 Euros on the bus).
There is not much going on in the immediate area around the Lanzarote Bay – there are a few shops and bars, but for better shopping you need to get down to the Cucharas or Jabillo centres.
The hotel does a FREE bus every 30 minutes to the Cucharas centre and beach – take a towel, plenty of suncream and go and watch the windsurfers at the Las Cucharas and Los Charcos beaches.
From the road at the bottom of the hotel you can walk to the Playa Bastian beach – not brilliant, but as you get to the Playa Bastian beach, go left and follow the path round to the tiny Jabillo beach, beautiful blue waters, golden sand, ideal for snorkelling and fishing. For a night out away from the hotel get down to ‘the square’, lots of good bars and restaurants with a good atmosphere. There are a few bars/restaurants near the Lanzarote Bay but they were pretty quiet and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for their owners opening up every night for just a handful of customers.
On the whole we had a great holiday – I’m suffering terribly with post-holiday-depression at the moment and would go back tomorrow, although with my older kids I would probably choose somewhere closer to the ‘square’ or consider Puerto del Carmen instead BUT I would DEFINITELY RECOMMEND the Lanzarote Bay for families with younger children – plenty to keep the little’uns busy, good food, clean rooms, lovely staff and overall well worth the money.
We booked with Direct Holidays 15 months in advance and saved about £600 compared to the Airtours brochure price! We were there from 28th July until 11th August – so hello to anyone else who was there then!