We have stayed in various Barcelo resorts, most recently the Barcelo Fuerteventura which we loved. We booked the holiday at La Galea in Lanzarote on the strength of it. We were very disappointed with this accommodation and the entertainment. which was poor. The accommodation whilst adequate had a problem with ants which was never really cured. Whilst the reception area is very clean and neat (unless you look at the ceiling which is a mess), the accommodation itself is very tired and needs to be upgraded. The beds are single put me up types which are very hard and uncomfortable and my husband's bed squeaked terribly. We had a room overlooking the side street and there is building work which starts with heavy plant and machinery at 6am. In addition we were woken every morning at 3:15 (except Sunday night/Monday morning by the skip lorry which comes to empty all of the bins and skips up the road. The reception staff are helpful as far as they can be, although there were no spare rooms to move us.

We went bed and breakfast and the food was fine - albeit again we were a bit disappointed that there were no "specials" in that usually at Barcelo there are changes and specials being cooked on particular days - but same every day here.

The Children's club was I am afraid an absolute joke. We have a 4 year old. The club room is a hut next to the swimming pool which is tiny and does not have the usual equipment you would expect to see. The rep is a Spanish girl who is very loud and does not speak particularly good english (not her fault but it doesn't help). The reps tend to just take the children off around the complex to play table tennis or boules. Neither or these were particularly appealing to a 4 year old. I really do believe that the Barcelo have a cheek saying that there is a Kids club here. We eventually found that the hotel next door have a good and well equipped kids club with trained nursery nurses. We took our child there and paid 5 euros per session which we felt was a bargain. Costa Teguise itself is great but wouldn't go back to these apartments.

I have read some of the reviews of the Barcelo La Galea and have to say that some opinions are very unfair.
We have stayed at the hotel for the past 2 holidays(with 3 young kids).
We have always found the staff to be communitive and helpful.
The rooms are as you would expect but TOTALLY adequate for a family holiday.
The restaurent is really good - a great value buffet option with a nice selection most evenings. The waiters come around in the evening to sell you drinks of course, but they are the 'normal' prices and not the over inflated prices that some other hotels may try to charge you for a drink with your evening meal.
Obviously, the Spanish have yet to master the bacon/sausage on the breakfast menu - but lets face it, the rest of Spain is the same. They dont reallly 'do' fried breakfasts, so, even tho' your fry up may not be to UK standards, at least they give it a go. Still, you have a vast choice of other food to choose from should you not want the rashers.
We always book direct, saving approx 30% on the brochure price, then we get our flights seperately.
All things considered, the La Galea is basically FAULTLESS for a family hoiliday, it's near to the beach, the accommodation is good, the staff are courteous and helpful, it's close to all that Costa Teguise has to offer and has everything else(eg car hire, shops) on the doorstep - I can add no more.

Barcelo La Galea hotel (in Costa Teguise) review

We stayed at Lanzarote and hotel Barcelo La Galea in Costa Teguise during April 2006.
Getting to the hotel from Arricefe was easy. We went by a rented car from the Arricefe airport, which only takes about fifteen minutes.
There was no problem parking nearby the hotel. Just make sure you have a full insurance on the care because the other drivers are either spanish or tourists with rented cars, and I can’t tell wich one is worst in parking. Your car is in high risk for getting parking damaged when left back to the rental firm.
The hotel is right next to to the main beach Las Cucharas. We were there for the windsurfing at Las Cucharas which was the main reason for picking this hotel that is very close to the beach. Also some of the rooms at the hotel has beautiful seaview over the beach and you can see all the the windsurfers passing back and forth. The hotel is placed on the south part, and right opposite to the five star Salinas hotel on the north part, of the the Las Cucharas bay. There was around 400 meters between the hotel to the windsurfing centre situated in the middle of the beach.

The hotel entrance looks nice and the personel working there are nice as well. We asked for a seaview studio and that was no problem. You can rent a safetybox for 10 euro a week. Exiting the reception leads you to the garden (30x30 meters) which is very well kept with green palms, plants and with the white hotel walls around this. You almost get the feeling of “is this really a three star hotel, could actually be a four”!

Entering our seaview room was a real dissapointment compared to our first impression of the hotel. The second we put the key in the keyhole made it hard to overlook the very bad shape of the old door to the room, this was like a door to a hovel with a bad lock and need for painting. Entering the room was an even more disapointment, we were hit by a strong smell of sellar or moisture problem. The room was narrow with one window wall out to the balcony towards the sea. This window was not enough to lighten up the room. It had one refrigerator standing against the wall in the middle of the room. The furnitures was very simple. The room had a small bathroom next to the entrance and we didn’t take any special notice of it because the rest was in such a bad condition. The seaview was beautiful and the beach was right outside the balcony. Maybe we could have lived with all the bad things for the good view but what finally made us whant to change room was the really bad smell.

Changing room was not much of a problem except for that there were no more seaview rooms available. We choose to change anyway, above having to live with the bad smell, also..this second room (studio) was to have a kitchen which we preferred. Unfortunly entering the second room was an disappointment as well, we where hit by the same smell but this time not as strong. Also this room had one window wall and it was also very dark. The balcony had both a sealing and walls which was the main reason for the darkness. The room felt a little like a hole in the wall. We decided this time not to go down again to the reception directly and instead to try this room out. Have you ever got the feeling that it might be you that is too picky when you are not satisfied, this time we did and tried to see everthing positive instead. This was after all “only” a three star hotel and we were at our destination, we had sun, heat, vacation and the beach around the corner. We were not gonno spend much time in the room during the days anyway.
We did ventilate the room a lot but just being out for half an hour was enough for the smell to be there again. We had to ventilate during the nights which was freesing cold, the sun never got into our balcony and therefore the room was very cold and our towels never dried. There was not a real lock on the balcony door, instead they had drilled a hole through both doors were you were supposed to stick a steal pin into. Not even the cleaning personell could get the hang of this. All the rooms we visited had this typ of lock. The kitchen was not frech at all! If you were to make a sandwich on the sink this would most likely be mixed with the previous guest food. This kitchen had not been cleaned well and also the old construction made its part. The sink was not attached to the bench so food would easily find its way in there. The refrigerator sounded like hell. I could go on but choose to summarize with “old and very dirty”. After two nights we were tired of freezing, the darkness and our wet towels. We choose not to change hotel because after all this hotel have a very good location in Costa Teguise and we had already paid for the whole stay.
The third time at the reception…”we want to have THIS room” we said, because we had now went around inside the hotel and found a room that had a very sunny balcony and looked empty. We got it and this was an apartment (two rooms instead of one, which we had to pay extra for). When entering this room we had now learned that all the rooms seem to have the same low standard. But what a difference in light compared with the other two, this was really nice, and no smell! After having not spent a minute on the balcony at the “second” room this was the first thing we did here. Here we spent our time for breakfast, after beach, after dinner and hang our towels and wet clothes for the rest of the time.
The kitchen was as dirty and old as the other one and there was nothing nice and special about the rooms or the bathroom. The hotwater went out in the mornings and evenings a few days, I guess that the hotel could not handle all that many guests that arrived in the end of the week.
We tried the dinner for 10 euros each at the hotel. That was nothing for us and we didn’t do that mistake again. For that money it was possible to get a much better dinner at the many restaurants just around the corner. The same goes for the 6 euro breakfast that we had the last day at the hotel. The hotel restaurant was very crowded and simple. This more remembers me of a school restaurant.
Final scores: I will not exclude that I will ever check in to this hotel again because of the location near the beach and the knowledge of which room to choose. But before I stay here again I will propably take a look at the other hotels also nearby the beach. The pros is that this hotel has a reasonable price and a five star location. The cons are that it gets a first impression of being a four star hotel but the rooms, general standard and food are only two star.
If you want something fresh, clean, quiet, tasty food, working shower and locks…then this hotel might not be for you. Regards C&C

We have been to Barcelo La Galea four times over the years. it is a great place to stay especially for children.
The rooms are basic but clean and large ,the sheets and towels were changed every day.
The staff, all of them, are very friendly and work very hard.
The pool area is very nice. gardens well kept.
Were self catering and ate out a lot so cannot comment on the restaurant.
location could not be better, right into the centre and on to the marina
The great advantage of being in Costa Teguise is experiencing the curries at Mahatma Cote, round the corner from Barcelo. They are superb. Paula cooks them, trained by an Indian Chef and Richard , who runs the place with Paula is really nice
We have been back to Costa Teguise just to go back to Mahatma Cote (The restaurant) Honestly ! Although we love Barcelo La Galea