Bull Costa Canaria & Spa

"This is indeed a very good hotel with several extremely positive points, a lot of which have already been eulogised about by previous reviewers. So, I will start with the few points that could be viewed as possible negatives, but for others could well be the main positive. Firstly, I cannot comment what the demographic is like in the high season, but during January the hotel attracts quite a mature crowd. Obviously, anyone under the age of 16 is not allowed in anyway, but if you are under the age of 50 you will very much be in the minority at this time of year. Not a problem for us but may be if you are the person who prefers your hotel to have a lively beating pulse. I am guessing one reason for this is that to my eyes, the hotel seemed excellently set up for those with mobility issues, with ramps everywhere and although I was initially concerned that the hotel only has two lifts, they were probably the fastest and most efficient lifts I have experienced in a hotel. Having reserved sun beds is an interesting concept and one that I think overall worked. It certainly took away all the angst of having to compete to reserve a decent bed each morning. However, at this time of year, for first timers you need to survey the lay of the land before finalising on a bed because the beds either got the morning sun or the afternoon sun but not both, so you need to choose according to preference. Being morning sun bathers, we were lucky to get two pool side beds for the morning sun, but in January these are in the shade by 2.30PM. An interesting upshot of this system seemed to be that people were much more relaxed about being on their beds and I would say that at any point in time only a third of them had their owners on them and this number decreased after 3.00PM. So, there wasn’t actually a problem to move for the last couple of hours onto an unoccupied bed in the sun, and hope that their owners did not return. The hotel also runs a strange system that, outside of the main buffet restaurant, you cannot put food and drink on your room, but have to pay for it there and then by credit card (no cash payments accepted). This means that you have to take your wallet with you to the pool area and to the bars in the evening which was a bit of an annoyance but hardly a showstopper. The location of the hotel is OK, but this far end of San Agustin is pretty sleepy and there is not a lot of bars and restaurants in close proximity to the hotel. For those who prefer to drink after dinner in a local bar you really had to take the ten-minute walk into the San Agustin shopping centre. A couple of positives though, are that the local public transport bus stop is right opposite the hotel and the island bus system is fantastic and busses will take you easily to the other resorts along the coast and its virtually a non-stop bus service into Las Palmas from here and you can be there in 40 minutes. Also, the hotel sits at the far end of the recently completed (2023 I believe) pedestrian walkway along the sea all the way to Maspalomas. What I would describe as a leisurely stroll takes you into the heart of Playa del inglés within 45 minutes, and Scandinavian speed walkers will do it a lot quicker. And now for the main positives. The service levels are excellent throughout the hotel. The food is very good in all areas and the food and drinks outside of the buffet restaurant are reasonably priced, especially the Pizzas from the pool bar. The rooms in the main hotel block are spacious and with all the things you would expect. You have to pay a daily charge for the hotel room safe but that is something I have now come to expect in Gran Canaria. We paid the extra for a sea view room and was allocated one on the top (seventh) floor that did indeed have great views over the hotel pool and gardens to the sea. The pool area is well designed with two adjoining pools, one heated, one not. And then the hotel stretches down through some well-maintained gardens to the rear entrance to the beach. The hotel Spa is very good with a nice sized spa pool and a decent steam room, sauna and dead sea salt pool room. The spa treatments we tried were excellent and I thought good value at €65 for an hours massage. And there is a separate roof to solarium which provides additional sunbathing space, although the beds do not have umbrellas and there is not a great deal of them and it is first come for usage. There is two parts to the solarium though and as well as the public section there is a separate nudist section behind a frosted screen. I believe it is equal in size, but not being German, I didn’t have the cahoolies to venture in and find out."

"This hotel is as close to paradise as you can get on earth. From the moment we arrived we were immediately struck by the unbelievable warmth and kindness from the staff. We booked a pool bungalow witch was amazing. The cleaning impeccable and all accessories you could wish for was included for your convenience. The pool area was amazing, the fact that you got your own preserved sunbeds made everything so easy and smooth. At the hotell there are a lot of activities for those who wish. Everything from archery to Spanish lessons and also daily water gymnastics in the heated up pool. The pool bar and restaurant served amazing a la carte food, witch was included, as well as a lot of drinks, both soft drinks and spirits. The piña cold was probably the best I've ever had. The breakfast buffet was, as everything else awesome. Every morning there was an assortment of sparkling wine so you could(at least I did) make your own Mimosa with freshly squeezed juice. The dinner buffet was really good(even if it not blew my mind the same way as the breakfast and lunch). Now- to the best part of the hotel-the all included SPA-area. It has a huge warmed up indoor pool with several water massage stations that softens up your body until you feel like a cooked spaghetti l(in a good way). It also had different kinds of saunas and best of all was the salt pool. A dark shallow pool inside a room that feels like a quiet cave, the water is infused with high amounts of salt that makes it possible to lay completely still and float. After a while you feel weightless and almost go into a trance-like state. I've never been so completely relaxed in my life. This was the highlights of our vacation, on day three of our seven day stay, we decided to book the same hotell for a week in January 2027. I have visited GC every winter for 25 years, and I have never, ever visited a hotell that could even begin to measure with this."

"I am disappointed that I need to share this as we visited the hotel in 2023 and were very impressed so much that we recently returned. This time rather than in the hotel main building we were allocated room 818 a bungalow in the garden. This is not a four star room and should not be allocated to customers on that basis. The room is for wheelchair users ( which we are not) and as such had a wet room bathroom, this room is awful it was like being in a school shower room, mouldy around shower, damp, patched up flooring tiles, paint falling off ceilings, open plastic bin with green bag no lid, laundry basket black in bottom, unable to dry towels due to dampness and no clothes line on terrace. The wood floor in the room is black and damaged clearly from previous water leaks and paint was falling from ceiling in last 2 days when people moved into the room above , which landed on the bed and in glass of water on bedside table. The good thing about room was shower pressure great and room large. We had previously stayed in a room on the 3rd floor at the side of the hotel which was lovely. Other thoughts were that the best thing about the hotel are the new the lunch options and coffee club which are brilliant and food in the pool bar is lovely and a great choice and included in the All inclusive. We gelt the food in the main restaurant in the evening was not as good as our first visit. The ‘star’ meat/fish option was not replenished often ( seamed like not enough staff) bit the grill was good other pr prepared options were bland in the main and often looked disgusting with really random mixtures of ingredients. Cheese board and desserts were good. Pasta station was poor in comparison to our first visit the pasta souse had mo taste extremely bland both the tomato and the garlic, last time we loved it as the sauce was so fresh , its a shame they changed it. Good, things- The hotel staff are lovely helpful and the hotel goes out of their way to provide good entertainment. The spa being free and open to all is great it was a shame that use of the massage bed is not shared more fairly amongst guests as the same regular guests wait for 15 mins before opening to book meaning others miss out"