RIU Paraiso Lanzarote

"On the outside looks like a great hotel, let me explain all the points. Now the hotel is clean and all outside areas clean and well looked after. The room was a pool view room and was great location from the pool. Dining room was a bit hectic at times as there are so many people rushing to get dinner incase they run out of food, dining staff were very friendly. There are drinks on tap to help yourself, wine , beer, soft drinks which is a nice touch. The bar staff are friendly but the drink options behind the bar are limited and the cocktails are machine made with loads of ice and no straws to get through that. Entertainment is limited and not for everyone. We had a 23.10 flight out of Lanzarote so we asked for a room to be kept on passed midday till the end of the day and was told no rooms available, yet when I went on the website I could purchase a extra nights stay, we asked to pay for a room and was told again by staff no rooms available. So they were lying to us. It seemed that once your holiday is over they just wipe their hands of you. If you want a room extension it's 14 euros per person per hour, it's cheaper to get a extra night accommodation which they said was not available but was still on there website to book. In summary nice hotel, some staff are friendly, bar drinks limited in selection, very large hotel so crowded in areas like dining and queuing for drinks. Probably would not revisit."

"This hotel is definitely a 6/10 but it is value for money (for what we paid for the first week of June anyway). I will breakdown all aspects and I will start with the negatives which has to be food. The food stations and variety in the main buffet was really poor. The dining area is massive however the buffet itself is smaller to other AI we’ve been to. Every night there was always the same cheese and crackers/pizza/pasta/some form of fish only one station changed daily (by station I mean 2/3 dishes). The lunch time buffet is essentially the same as what you can get at Pepes poolside - all day burgers, hotdogs ect it just became a bit samey. I will post a picture of the meat fajitas that were served (there was no meat). They also claim to have cooking stations, however, it is not cook to order as most places I have been to previously. Instead it’s typically cooked in front of you and then left under the heater. It could have benefited from an omlette station ect and a lot more variety. There are two other buffet restaurants that you can book unlimited amounts of times. These were both much better than the main restaurant especially the Asian one which had sushi, noodles, beef stir fry ect. The other restaurant had good steak but other than that it in my opinion was lacking a bit more variety again. Another negative is the gym, it is quite small and limited, dumbells do not exceed 10kg and it is more a cardio based gym. However you can make do as I did with the cables and dumbells but if there is 3/4 people in there it is basically at capacity. Now the positives, the staff were amazing, attentive, and always there to help. Reception is 24 hours and always had a positive experience. Any request through the app was also delt with promptly too. The place was spotless, always being cleaned and the staff were all very very friendly. The two pools were clean and busy but there was always a sunbed available, whether it was 9am or 3pm. There is a lot of umbrellas or sunbeds in the sun. I liked the fact one pool had the entertainment around it and the other didn’t so if you wanted a more quiet space this worked well. The best part of the whole hotel has to be the entertainment/animation team at Riu. We watched 3 shows that they did and 2 were absolutely incredible the last was still great just did not have the fun comedy side the other two did. The animation team put on a lot of events such as bingo and sports ect and made it very enjoyable. They almost all speak 3 languages or more! My only critique would be some nights when that entertainment was not on and outside entertainment was in like singers ect it 1) was not as good but 2) it kept being moved, they said it was in the theatre and then the act started in the bar area then half way through they moved it to the theatre at which points there was no seats and the whole vibe was killed. I thought the drinks were all good, good beers on tap, cocktails were good but somewhat limited. For example, you can only order from the menu not request specific cocktails I.e sex on the beach. Overall, I enjoyed my holiday but was let down by the food. I would probably recommend the hotel for families as opposed to couples (coming from a young couple)."

"This is a good hotel but this is a very big hotel,Like other people say there is a good walk if you are put is the other building this is the very quiet area it can get very loud when you go for your evening meal there are plenty of seat to pick from. hotel is very clean and very well maintained rooms are a good size with walk in showers beds are very comfortable. There are more than enough sunbeds for everyone and you don't even have to get up early to get a sun bed. This hotel is very good value for money the food in hotel is good you will always find something to eat even if you are fussy what you eat"