As an Islander myself; I suggest that there must be something about Islands, when it comes to their institutional inability to produce one single genuine quality hotel between them.

Take one of the northern group of isles in the UK as an example. Of all the many established hotels on these islands; any of the many I have stayed at, are miserable, damp, musty and in a desperate state. No one from the local Council there, intervenes to recognise their hopeless accomodation facilities. No enterprising authority there shakes the local Tourist Board by the neck and sort out the dismal casue of such a loss on potential tourism.

Why ? The locals. The surly young, can't be bothered all that's available local workforce.

Read the Tripadvisor revues of these places. Weed out the obvious rave comments by staff and friends of staff. Read the other entries and consider the more detailed critiques too.

So, I move from the far north of Europe, to the far south. The Canary Islands too, seem to fail to appreciate the wealth and revenue brought to them by non nationals.

I want to stay at a five star hotel in the Canary Islands. As of today's date, reading the more critical comments on Tripadvisor satisfies me that there are no genuine five stars on any of the Canary islands. Not a one. The nearest to it appears to be the RIu at Maspalomas in Gran Canaria.

For most hotels, read past the gushy and somewhat naieve raves, and filter through the less so. It's the same old story. The staff. The local staff.. If you are not Spanish; you are simply not a valued customer.

I know It's a bit sad. But it's convenient. We have been to Lanzarote nine times. Each time, we stayed at the four star Teguise Playa in Costa Teguise. I know the place has it's faults, but for us it's OK. You get what you pay for and it is what it say's on the label. A four star hotel. After a relaxing holiday, you pay a very reasonable bill and come away refreshed and not having been ripped off. The bill is better than the worn carpets.

On a more recent visit, we 'checked out' the new Puerto Calero in central coast Lanzarote. I was impressed by the sight of the large new five star Hesperia hotel there. The lobby is large, fresh and welcoming. The vista then spans out onto pools and various restaurants. It apeared to be so clean, modern and relaxing. I was a moth to the light. "When we next come to Lanzarote, let's stay here".

Back home; I checked out Tripadvisor and that should have been enough to see sense. All that glitters............

I rue the day I ignored this site and promise not to do it again. Honest !!

Pre warned by the site that the room won't be ready when you check in; I emailed them in advance to 'please not let this happen'. Despite what they said, it of course, did.
I should have had a back up accomodation lined up elsewhere so that I could tell them that they clearly don't value my custom enough to afford this basic courtesy on checking in, so I wouldn't.

After two hours, the room was ready without an apology.

If you want tea and coffee making facilities in your five star room, you'll have to apply for it over many trips to reception and then pay dearly for such a strange and inconveient request.

The Chambermaid had an attitude from hell and scorned us in Spanish as she departed our room having dropped off the item. There was a plumber in our bathroom at that moment, trying to fix our faulty plumbing. She then stopped and raged about us to him, standing in our room and pointing towards us.

Don't expect to speak to the Manager of this hotel. He will not see you. Not at any cost. Not ever. He has no autonomy from the Barcelona based Hesperia HQ and cannot assist you anyhow. That's probably why he won't.

Not even at breakfast, do Hesperia want you to have any tea of coffee. Unless you are Spanish that is. As you swat away a constant black fly infestation, ask the waiters for coffee in English and they'll 'cock a snoop' at you and pass you by as if you weren't there. A bee line made for the Spanish.

II resolved this lack of beverages by going to the main central part of the restaurant and selecting a coffee jug and milk jug from the staff table. Brought it out and served ourselves. This met with cheers from other non Spanish guests and embarressed staff flurrying to then do their job. On other occassions, I actually served other tables with tea and coffee myself.

Better still. Take a twenty minute stroll down to Puerto Calero and get your breakfast at any one of many obliging cafe's there.

I even emailed Hesperia on my laptop when I was there, asking if we could get some tea and coffee. This met with no reply.

There are several Restaurants at the Hesperia, but most are closed, all year round. Perhaps this is because the hotel simply doesn't get full enough to justify opening them.

We actually provided our own entertainment while there as theirs is hopeless. I'd go up to Reception to ask something and my wife would stand back to watch the fun. Each time, I'd chose a new member of 'the team'. I'd half open my mouth and the response was swift, "WHAT ?". That's if the phone didn't ring first. The phones take priority over you and a flat hand is thrust at your face as if to tell you to shut up and wait until the new phone call has been dealt with.

It turns out that there isn't one chambermaid from hell. There and a handfull of staff who vie for that. But there was a few who were polite. Really. There are a few.

I'd then say, "do you mean ,WHAT', or do you actually mean, 'can I help you'? The vacant glazed expression was a delight.

Things took a new low for us when a valuable item dissapeared from our room. Things became worse when I couldn't get Hesperia to take it seriously. To date, they still haven't.

There was a wedding going on there on one of the day's we were there. That was the only time we ever saw one of the closed restaurants, open. I gather that some of the guests on that occassion were unimpressed with the hotel and I see that the independent fall out of their comments also on this site.

For us, the problems in addition to all this are too numerous to mention.

The Spa Centre is good, but guests are allowed to smoke immediately outside the open doors to the Spa pool. More amazingly; some of them do then smoke. The staff don't stop this. Who ever heard of a smokey spa ?

It all rounded off with our last night there finding a raucous party going on in and out of the swimming pool up to 3am. I had to telephone reception to tell them that six men were shouting and screaming, fully clothed, in the pool., all being encouraged by a large drunken group at the bar. By their behavior I suspected that alcohol, was a lesser contributor to their state of mind. After another call, I had to ask the night receptionist what was the difficulty he was having in plucking up the courage to go out and deal with this. Did he want me to do it ? It was only when I said I was going to, that he did. Many balconies had guests standing out in the middle of the night, watching the melee.

The massive bill was paid the next morning, for this dreadful hotel. I vowed that I'd never say a word and deal with it when I came home. Not that is until the receptionist finally asked if 'we enjoyed our stay'. I then let rip, all guns blazing in verbal tirade. I did not care what newly arrived guests heard.

All they could say was 'sorry'. I reminded them that 'sorry' is simply a word and means nothing without corrective redress and restoration.

I likewise let rip in writing to Hesperia, Barcelona, on my return to the UK.

Their eventual response saw a total failure to grasp my complaint.. They have offered us 'a free two nights stay at the smame hotel with VIP treatment and free entrance one day for two people in the Spa and Wellness Centre'. A dead line for this stay was a year post the offer. This to show us that they do have a good service after all.

It reminds me of the notice in the local Chip shop. "Don't ask for credit unless over 80 years old, and accompanied by both parents".

So let's see now. Do you think we are going to fly out to Lanzarote for two nights and stay at this awful place and then fly back ?

I have never been so angry about a hotel. Not anywhere. This is not a five star hotel. This is a very expensive hotel to stay at and nothing about it can justify the funds laid out. The first thing we did after this two week holiday, was to arrange a proper holiday elsewhere to recover.

The net result of that saw me write a personal letter to the Customer Manager of the said hotel, telling him what a wonderful stay we had and how excellent the staff were.

It wasn't on an island !

The Hesperia Hotel is a lovely, large, well appointed hotel with good facilities. The check in experience was good, with helpful and attentitive staff, the room was a good size with two double beds and a sliding door across half the room which meant you could seperate your wardrobe/dressing/sink/bathroom area from the main part of the bedroom, which was unusual, but a nice design.
Our room overlooked the pool/sea and was well airconditioned in that hot climate !

The buffet breakfast in the hotel was great, a fabulous variety (I recommend the freshly made pancakes with chocolate and caramel sauce !!) There was also a buffet dinner in the evening at 20 euros was reasonably priced.
The hotel was about a 8 minute walk down a coastal path to the marina which had about 7 or 8 restaurants to choose from as well as a supermarket and mini souvenir shops.
The hotel was v. quiet and it was nice that there was no mad scramble in the morning to get a sun lounger in a good location !!

My friend and I stayed in the Hesperia Lanzarote for 1 week, we wanted an extremely relaxing holiday, and thats what we got! Check in was stress free, and Veronique was extremely informative (and very helpful during the rest of our stay too.) We were not disappointed with the room, and as two girls travelling there was more than enough space for clothes etc!! The location is idyllic and I would definately go back there on a romantic holiday with my boyfriend. The pool areas are fab and spread out enough so you wouldn't feel like anyone is sitting on top of you, with that said the hotel was only half occupied. The negative.... Well, the main thing that annoyed us was that during the day there is only one bar/restaurant (pool bar) open to have a drink or lunch, and as there menu is quite restrictive you don't have much of a choice - though the staff there were fantastic too and always went out of their way to help. Puerto Calero itself is almost 15/20 minute walk so at lunch time the last thing we wanted to do was get scalded walking to and from there so felt we had little choice but to eat here, by the last day we were so sick of it! In the evening again there was only one restaurant open, which was a tapas buffet, not sure about anyone else, but for us not to be able to have a sit down meal in a five star hotel was a bit strange - when we asked why the other restaurants/bars or night club weren't open, they said they only opened for July and August - their website says "peak season" so we had assumed that would at least include June if not September as well!! We had a few issues with reception, the most notable was asking if they could book "Amura" (a fab restaurant in Puerto Calero) one afternoon for us, the girl said it was no problem, took my name and room number - we arrived at the restaurant at the time, to find the restaurant was shut that evening!!!!! No effort had been made to contact us to let us know that she had not made the reservation!
As I said at the start it is a fantastic hotel, but not sure in terms of service or facilities that I'd give it five stars..... and hypocritacally would definately go back, just for the location alone!!

We spent a week in this beautiful hotel with our two small children. The hotel lobby is impressive and the design of the hotel and the rooms is absolutely amazing. We had a room with sea view, which is absolutely a must. The restaurant was also very good, but we also loved the other typical Spanish restaurants in the island. There is a very small stretch of beach quite cozy but unfortunately a bit unhandy with small children. However, the several pools more than make up for that. The staff were always friendly with us and our children, and this really made a difference. It was not so crowded even over the Easter week, a big plus. The hotel is a bit far from the lively marina of Puerto Calero, and a car is absolutely necessary to get around.