"At the last minute my partner and I booked 1/2 board for 7 nights at the Santa Rosa Club Apartments for some winter sunshine. Lanzarote certainly delivered on this aspect, with a few days of great weather, but with some heavy rain showers for around 24 hours, which is to be expected at this time of year.
The Santa Rosa complex is lovely, with plenty of ground level bungalow style accommodation providing level access to most of amenities, which would be great for anyone needing wheelchair access (we didn't). Inside the bungalow, consideration has been given to wheel chair users with extra wide doors throughout and some adaptions in the bathroom: shower seat and pull down rail to help with getting on/off the toilet. We had a south facing 2 bed superior room, with a semi-private terrace, containing a table and chairs and sun loungers. It was lovely to have our lunch or evening drink on the quiet terrace enjoying the glorious sunshine.
The food is basic and the restaurant we referred to as 'the workers canteen'. However, the food was generally well cooked, and there was plenty for all, with kitchen staff regularly changing the food containers when it was running low. The salad bar is excellent, with a wide variety of salads available, and at least 3 different mixed salads being available every night. Breakfast had both continental and cooked choices. Omelettes and eggs easy over could be requested from the cook. Evening meal generally consisted of a pasta / rice / pizza dish with different styles of potatoes and a different vegetable dish each night. There were 3 theme nights, Spanish, Mexican and Chinese, of which the best was Mexican, the food was delicious.
Drinks (including bottle water) need to be ordered from the waitressing staff, and paid for after your meal at the till. Water was 1.50 euros, a small beer was 2 euros. There is no free water provided, perhaps given Lanzarote's arid nature, this is to be expected.
That's where the positives end.
A) In the restaurant, there was one massive downside; staff scraped food waste into a plastic bucket on a trolley, as they cleared the tables, sometimes right next to you when you are eating! Dishes should either be removed to the kitchen and then dealt with there as appropriate, or tray racks provided, so that guests could self clear.
Also, the food labelling (all in English) was fairly random. Of our 7 nights, there were no labels on the salad bar for 2 nights. Also some of the labels did not refer to the actual dish, and no dish was labelled as being Vegetarian - using the simply green 'V' labelling could have helped. In fact there were only occasional dishes suitable for Vegetarians. Asking the staff led to some very gruff and grumbled responses. This does not need to be the case. Food labels could be both in English and Spanish, so that both guests and staff know what each dish contains. There could be at least one different dish each day which was vegetarian. We found on occasions, pasta, rice and salads to have small meat additions. When the base could be vegetarian and any additional meat option provided in a separate dish.
B) On arrival, we quickly discovered a number of problems with the bungalow:
1. The bed sheets, pillows and duvets were really damp and there was black mould in the corner of the back wall, and the whole bungalow smelt very musty.
2. There is no heating in the bungalow. We tried to set up some heating with the control wall panels, but this did not seem to work.
3. There were broken kitchen cupboards (which didn't open/close properly), a broken lid on the bathroom bin and a damaged bedroom wall socket (so couldn't plug in an adapter) and no Wi-Fi according to the instructions given to us when checking in.
We returned to Reception for advice:
1. Re the heating, we were told there is none. The control panels are for the air conditioning, which will only work if the front glass panel doors are shut. We believe that in the winter months, the bungalows should be provided with a portable heater. Being in a damp, mouldy room is really bad for your respiratory health. And, the result of sleeping in a cold and damp bedroom for a week, is that we both came back feeling unwell with chesty coughs. Not what we wanted from a restful holiday in a beautiful location.
2. Re the damp bedding - nothing offered by Reception staff, they seemed stumped by the question - we asked to move rooms, we were told that nothing was available. We asked if the bedding could be changed, and were given 2 sheets, and 2 pillows cases at Reception!!! We went back to the room to change it ourselves, then had to deposit the damp bedding back to Reception. But this is a hotel issue, guests should not be expected to change the bedding!!!
3. Re Wi-Fi - this is most alarming of all. We were told to use any of the Santa Rosa Wi-Fi names that came up when searching for networks. We asked what our password should be and told 'a password is not required'. As an IT Consultant this was an extremely alarming response. The entire Wi-Fi network is totally insecure being shared by multiple users with no passwords. This needs to be addressed as matter of some urgency. I have never stayed anywhere in the last 10 years, including hotels on Lanzarote, where such poor attention has been given to the security of guests personal data.
Needless to say, despite the beautiful complex, we will not be returning to Santa Rosa, unless the issue of providing some heating to curb the cold damp rooms in the winter months is is addressed by the hotel, and the security issues with the basically open Wi-Fi network is rectified."
