Caybeach Sun

All I can say is that I wish I'd read the reviews here before booking... Like many, we were struggling to find a holiday in budget with a child in tow during the school holidays. This one popped up, looked decent and, as everything else was getting booked up, we took the plunge. Lesson learned... Caybeach Sun is a basic apartment-based hotel. Rooms are built in a complex surrounding the pools. Some look outward towards the sea or other parts of Playa Blanca. You'll want one overlooking the pools if you want to sit on your balcony to keep an eye on children, but if you prefer a quieter life request one that faces away. The ones facing the pool are certainly more appealing however (we requested a room overlooking the pool when we booked, but ended up looking west over a building site). Rooms are self-contained apartments, with a bedroom and lounge with sofa bed and childrens'pull out bed. Each room has a decent balcony of approx 3m square with a drying air. There's a small hob, microwave, fridge, kettle, toaster and coffee maker along with crockery and cutlery and a dining table. We opted for all-inclusive so didn't use much - more on that later. The shower is really decent, with a big rainfall-style head and also a detachable smaller one on a flex. There was no bathtub in our apartment. There is air-con in the rooms, but the unit is situated in the bedroom only, so doesn't really cool the rest of the apartment, meaning that my daughter's bed in the lounge was very hot at night whilst ours was pretty chilly! There's a safe and TV with a decent selection of channels (including Disney for the kids). The remote controls for the air-con and TV are all available from reception for a small deposit which is refunded upon checkout. The safe also requires a deposit and then it's about €1.80 per day... a bit odd, we thought. Pool towels are also available with a deposit but not included. The towels in the apartments are laughably small - the same size as some would use as a hand towel in the UK! Bring your own would be our advice. The apartments were generally clean and tidy, if a little tired. Absolutely fine for a family break. The pool areas were fine, with two main pools, a kids play zone and then two small flumes. These are cleaned daily and are the centrepiece of the whole hotel. The drainage slats around the edge of the pools are made of plastic and kept cracking under guests' weight (including mine!) during our stay, cutting a few people's feet. The lifeguard seemed to have a ready supply of spare parts for this - so it obviously happens often! The sunbeds remain chained up until 9:30 each morning... A bit strange, but it does stop the 7am brigade reserving them all before the rest of us have even woken up. You do need to be there at 9:15 to bag a decent spot though - especially if you want a parasol, which are in very short supply (we got caught without one on our first day and the sun was unbearable after a few hours). Lots of the sunbeds seemed to be broken, so getting there early meant we could grab the intact ones, too. Not ideal. There's a small bar by the pool... this is where things really started to go amiss for us... the catering. The bar opens around 10am and serves hot and cold drinks, ice cream (in sealed tubs) and snacks (chips, toastie, burgers etc) during the morning. It was constantly staffed by one person, though - whose duty it was to serve drinks AND cook/serve food. They plainly struggled to do this, so there were queues daily just to get a drink, annoying guests. Add to this the fact that the staff spoke little English (I always ask for things in Spanish as I think it's polite to at least try!) and there were many frustrated customers who couldn't get what they wanted. My daughter, who had an all-inclusive band on, was denied a portion of chips after queueing for 15 mins, as the snack bar closes at 12:30pm whilst lunch is served in the restaurant. Fair enough, you may think, but she'd been waiting in line all that time - a diligent staff member would have told her that she couldn't have any food when she'd joined the queue... Closing the snack bar at 12:30pm also means that all-inclusive guests HAVE to go into the main dining room for lunch - and that means getting dried off to do so. The restaurant itself is a bit tired and has a very odd smell about it (I wouldn't say that it smells of vomit like some people have commented, but maybe like wine or beer has been spilt somewhere)... Food-wise, the variety is severely limited - after a couple of days we saw the same dishes appearing again and again. The food wasn't great, either - everything was of pretty poor quality - even the bread was pre-sliced and had gone quite stale by the time it was served. Plenty of chicken nuggets and chips, plus some very salty pizza (my daughter's quite fussy but even she refused to eat in the restaurant and was just having a buttered roll in the end). As many have said, food doesn't seem to be replenished much; when it runs out that seemed to be it (other than chips). I'm sure that can't be true, but there were LOTS of empty platters each day, so who knows. We ended up walking down to Playa Blanca each evening for dinner, despite being all-inclusive. It cost us maybe another €200-250 overall, but the food was that poor at the hotel that we felt our holiday was being affected by it. Drinks include Tropical, the local beer, Stella Artois on draught at the pool bar, various soft drinks, water, house wine (awful), sangria (nice) and pre-mix cocktails (sickly). The fruit juice tastes like strong squash and is best avoided. There's very little in the way of entertainment at the hotel, though the poor guy who runs it all does his best. There's bingo and quizzes in the evenings, plus face-painting and discos for the kids. You're better off walking the 15 mins down to the beach, though - there are plenty of bars with live music each night and fairly cheap drinks. Much nicer view, too! Overall we felt the Caybeach Sun was a bit of a missed opportunity... a nice hotel, great location and spacious rooms. It just needs to be managed properly and have a bit of money spent on the facilities and food and it would be SO much better. As it is, go self-catering, save the money on the cost of your holiday and then spend the difference in the multitude of great local restaurants and bars in Playa Blanca instead. If you do that you'll have a comfy and pleasant holiday in a lovely part of Lanzarote!

We have just arrived back from a great stay this hotel, a family of 2adults and 4 children. Our rooms were 204 &206 well maintained, clean and more than adequate for a holiday with coffee maker, food processor, corkscrew and tin opener. These rooms are a great base, nice views of the pools and close to the shop, reception and entertainment. We stayed on an all inclusive basis and although they had just changed over the food supplier there was no issues with mealtimes and always something to eat for each one of us (even the fussy kiddies) the snack bar was very good the first few days but unfortunately later in the holiday ran out of hotdogs, toasties, sauce and ice cream, this seemed to coincide with changing of the staff member on the bar to a dark haired lady who wasn't really a people person. Ice Cream was available from the restaurant during opening times. The grounds and communal areas were always kept clean, and the hotel staff polite and helpful, a lifeguard on duty who was well trained and saw to my son quickly and efficiently when he fell and cut his leg, even asking us to return the next day to redress the wound. Naji in the evening bar was fantastic and the bar was always kept clean and hardly any queues, he was wonderful with the kiddies! Cristian the entertainment works so hard and all the kids fell in love with him - a real born entertainer, with time for every family, without doubt one of the best parts of our holiday was the evening entertainment, very basic (quiz/bingo) etc but so funny! Cristian you are a star! The pools are a good temperature and very clean, the indoor pool is lovely and the gym well equipped, the bars are well stocked and the shop sells everything you may need and will inflate your pool items for 1€ if you bring them from home. The only small gripe was we had asked reception to order us a minibus/6 seater for our departure 24 hours before and upon check out the man on reception just said ill do it now, which by that point was too late and therefore having to use 2 taxis (separating us and doubling the cost) had he said he would not book it at the time we would have done it ourselves to ensure we all stayed together. Thanks for a great stay.

For the price range, this rates as ''very good''. The place is clean, tidy, well maintained and well laid out. It is fairly laid back, staff are friendly and the apartments are ''ok'' for the price. Fairly good for young children to, with a kids pool and paddling pool etc. Beach and shops/restaurants areas are within easy walking distance.