Barcelo Corralejo Sands

Beautiful hotel, very clean and friendly staff,excellant food and service, we stayed half board the food was out standing,great facilities, big pool plenty of sunbeds, separate kids pool.we will definatley be returning.

Firstly, I would like to thank Caroline (Guest Experience Manager) for the birthday card, wishes, champagne & cake. This was a beautiful gesture to return to in our room on my birthday. I sincerely appreciate this personal touch & it contributes to Barcelo’s competitive standards. We stayed as a family of 3 (6 year old daughter) for a 2 week All Inclusive break (Aug - Sept) & overall, we all had a fantastic time. Some of the best main points that are worth a mention about this hotel are as follows: • Room – Spacious, clean & well maintained. Excellent large comfy clean bed. If anything to improve it would be a little more storage area. However, the safe should be included within the cost, not a separate daily fee. • Hotel & grounds – Exceptionally clean & maintained to the highest of standards! Always a clean fresh aroma. • Pool/s – Again, well maintained, constantly kept immaculate & a life guard to supervise but not interfere with fun. • Staff – All found to be extremely polite. Special mention to Maria on reception as she was most helpful in all aspects. Daniel as he always had a smile & his demeanour was enough to make anyone feel happy & welcome. • Animation Team – Extra special mention to Veronica – She is an absolute star! As well as doing her job fabulously, she took time out to play with our daughter (Lexie), taught her to swim, had fun with her & today she is still mentioned daily at home by us all. A true credit to herself & the hotel. Hugo - Lead Animator - He is a comical Mexican that really knows how to make adults smile & we will miss his cocktail making (mixy mixy) afternoons. Mathew - A very helpful gent that wants to get you in the holiday spirit, (he wants you to be crazy not lazy haha). • Breakfast – Fabulous array of food & cooked to lovely standard. The 'big' chef on the grill deserves immense appreciation from customers & Barcelo as he works his fingers to the bone each morning, this encoupled with his ‘loud’ jovial banter, he is a delight to see at the start of each day. • Free Bus Service – This is excellent for the daily trip to La Olivia beach. A very good service. Unfortunately, I feel there is slight room for improvement which would be: • Pool Bar Food (All Inclusive) – 14 days of fries, pizza or a poorly filled sandwich is rather poor for a 4 star hotel. Its so repetitive & not good for healthy eaters.Please introduce more variety. • Pool Bar Food (Menu) – Again, this is very limited but worse, its certainly not 4 star food. I once got the ‘Long Chicken’ which is meant to be a chicken breast in a bun. Honestly, the piece of supposed chicken was smaller than a Pringle crisp. I ordered the Tagliatelle Carbonara to be given Fusilli Bolognese after a 55 minute wait. It was also pretty tasteless. This menu needs to be seriously reviewed & also implement more options for children such as hot-dogs, toasted sandwiches, chicken bites etc. As for the ice-creams, these are in the form of ‘cheap tubs’ that sit beside branded ice-creams/lollies that need to be purchased separately. Barcelo need to adopt these into the all Inclusive option. • Evening Meal – There is a severe shortage of ‘meats’ at this sitting. We only managed to eat 3 times throughout our stay due to this & this forced us to eat out. Not something I had planned or made a budget for. • Drinks – Barcelo advertise they provide branded international drinks yet if I wanted a cider, I would have to pay for it. Also the same as Budweiser, Stella, Coroner, these had to be paid for but I could drink cocktails valued at 6 – 8 Euro but not have a far cheaper drink without paying for it. This needs addressing as its almost false advertisement and not a good service to customers who want a simple cider. Kopparberg (fruity cider) is sold in most bars in Corralejo, on draught at approx. 3 Euro. I am sure the hotel could have this included to the delight of many customers as this was a sore talking point daily around the pool bar area. • Entertainment – Although the team themselves are fun, in comparison to other hotels it is pretty poor when taking children into account. All entertainment around the pool is directed to adults only and nothing programmed in for kids to join in as a family event. At night, the mini disco lasts for 30 minutes then that’s their night time over with. To me a disco should consist of flashing lights as a minimum but there is literally nothing. Furthermore, the adult entertainment only lasts a maximum of 90 minutes. So that’s a mere 2 hours each evening. I also asked Hugo if we could have music left on after aqua gym – apparently its not permitted as not all people want to hear music. I would disagree as people want to get in the holiday spirit. If people want to listen to their own music, they can(majority had ear phones in). This is probably due to having nothing but a silent pool atmosphere which totally dampens the holiday vibe. Finally, upon checking out of the hotel, I was told that All Inclusive is now finished & we have to pay for any food & drink. I have travelled the world staying in 4/5 star hotels yet not once have I been told to pay for food & drink on my final day. Also, considering when I paid £4,000 for a 14 day All Inclusive holiday, I expect it to be for the entire holiday. I raised this annoyance with reception staff and they said I need to speak with my tour operator as its nothing to do with the hotel. I said I think this will be the hotel as it has nothing to do with my tour operator. However, a Jet2 rep walked by & I questioned him. He declared it will be hotel policy and they (Jet2) will not be impressed to learn this & I should make sure they are informed once I return to the UK. As we do not arrive until 9:50pm on our first day, I am sure it would not put Barcelo ‘out of pocket’ to leave there guests to have one final meal & a cool drink before their flight home. I fully understand that rooms should be handed-over for the next occupants but to be refused refreshments is pretty much nothing short of greed, especially after a 2 week all inclusive stay. I hope this will be raised with Barcelo management as there was another 6 families in disgust with this policy and it could potentially, jeopardise returning customers. We did have a fantastic time in Corralejo and we will be returning next year. However, if it is to be Barcelo Sands, I would like to learn of some changes prior to this. It is a fabulously, clean hotel with outstanding staff and it has the chance to adopt a few improvements I mentioned and I speak for many holiday makers that were in resort at the same time as us. Thank you Barcelo Sands for our first visit, please keep in contact to make us return again.

Could not really find fault, was a great holiday from start to finish. I would recommend the hotel to anyone. Close to the shops and beach. The pool was great the service was second to none, entertainment was good. And the entertainment staff was absolutely amazing