Labranda Golden Beach

⭐ 1 STAR — THINK VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE BOOKING LABRANDA GOLDEN BEACH

Our holiday at LABRANDA Golden Beach started brilliantly — beautiful weather, pool days, a beach day and a lovely break. Unfortunately, what happened towards the end completely changed our experience.

Our room was broken into while we were asleep.

Our passports, driving licences, bank cards and other belongings were stolen while we were inside the hotel.

When we discovered what had happened, there was clear damage to our door consistent with it having been forced open. Police attended our room, inspected the damage and photographed the door as part of their investigation.

What happened next was incredibly concerning.

Rather than initially focusing on our safety and helping us understand how someone had gained access to our room, we were told “it’s not the housekeeping” — despite the fact that we had not suggested or accused housekeeping of anything.

We were then told that the sun had caused the damage to the door.

We were also told “these things happen unfortunately.”

For two people who had just discovered that their room had been entered while they were asleep and had their passports, bank cards and other belongings stolen, this response was extremely upsetting.

The police attended, photographed the damage and dealt with the incident as a reported theft/break-in.

There was also a noticeable change in the housekeeping service after the incident. Our room had been cleaned by housekeeping every day throughout the week leading up to the theft. After the incident, housekeeping did not return to our room to clean it. We found this particularly strange and uncomfortable given everything that had happened.

We asked about CCTV and were told there was no CCTV at the hotel, and there is apparently none covering the wider resort either. There is also a black gate at the rear of the resort which states that it is locked at midnight — but it was not locked.

Given that our room had been entered while we were asleep, these security concerns were extremely worrying.

We immediately reported the break-in to reception and asked for help. We were initially directed by the hotel to a police station which was closed, involving a roughly 20-minute walk. We then had to return to reception, where a different member of staff told us we needed to go to the police station in Jandía instead.

This resulted in us paying €34 for a taxi there, plus another taxi back, simply because we had initially been directed to the wrong police station.

After having our room broken into while we were asleep, we felt extremely unsafe. Despite explaining this, the hotel did not move us to another room.

We were so frightened about remaining in the room that we ended up barricading the door ourselves with the sofa and beds so that we could sleep.

Think about that.

You’ve just had your hotel room broken into while you’re asleep, your passports and valuables have been stolen, there is visible damage to your door which the police have photographed, there is no CCTV, and you don’t know how someone gained access — yet you’re left to make your own room feel secure by pushing furniture against the door.

We obtained an official police report and were initially told that the documentation would allow us to travel home. However, when we arrived at the airport, we were refused boarding and found ourselves stranded in Fuerteventura without our passports.

The consequences have been enormous.

So far, we have had to pay:

• £125 each (£250 total) for emergency passports
• £160 for an urgent Airbnb, as the embassy advised that otherwise we could have been placed into emergency accommodation/shelter
• £570 for new return flights
• £60 to extend our airport parking
• Additional taxi and bus costs, including travelling to the police station and dealing with the emergency passport arrangements

That’s at least £1,040 in clearly identifiable additional costs, before even adding all of the other taxi and travel expenses.

And that’s before you put a price on the stress of having your passports stolen, being unable to fly home, worrying about your personal identity documents and spending days trying to sort out something that should never have happened.

We understand that a hotel cannot necessarily prevent every crime. What we expected was appropriate security, support and reassurance after such a serious incident happened to us.

Instead, we were left feeling vulnerable and unsafe, initially sent to the wrong police station, weren’t offered alternative accommodation despite feeling unsafe, and ultimately had to barricade our own door.

This is not how anyone should have to spend the end of their holiday.

We aren’t claiming that the hotel stole our belongings, and we aren’t accusing any particular individual of the break-in. We are simply stating what happened to us and what we experienced afterwards.

Our room was broken into while we were asleep. Our passports and valuables were stolen. The police attended and photographed the damage to our door. We were told there was no CCTV. A rear gate which states it is locked at midnight was not locked. We were told the door damage was caused by the sun. We were told “these things happen unfortunately.” Housekeeping stopped cleaning our room after the incident despite cleaning it every day beforehand. We were not moved rooms despite feeling unsafe, and we had to barricade our own door.

We came here for a relaxing holiday.

We left feeling frightened, stressed, financially out of pocket and deeply disappointed.

Would we stay here again? Absolutely not.

Would we recommend LABRANDA Golden Beach to friends and family? Unfortunately, no.

Before booking this hotel, ask yourself how comfortable you would feel knowing what happened to us.

Just to be very open and honest and give a fair review here there are a few things to work in but on the whole this is a great hotel.

The food is exceptional we have been all inclusiving for years and years across the world but the food offering here was spot on. There is a good range of salads and mains a bit limited but cant fault it really. Nice extra touches like wipes for when you have had to peel the abundance of fresh prawns and toothpicks, fresh slab of honeycomb served at breakfast were a winner with us.

Pool is small but ample, there was an issue with the filtration early in our stay and tiles coming off but this was worked on and resolved. Beach is amazing and only a short walk but the Loungers on the beach (although nothing to do with the hotel) were a bit overpriced and uncomfortable.

The ecocup having to give a €1 deposit felt weird but I have to say was a really positive move with no rubbish left around the pool at any point, great initiative, others should follow

Deposit of €10 for a beach towel acceptable but having to then pay €1 each time to refresh towels not appreciated. Not cool!

Room perfectly fine, others said on here take a fire stick as no English channels, your on holiday, it doesn’t matter!

Local supermarket great although not cheap enough but your choice

Two small bottles of water provided at start then nothing else, not cool just bite the billet, it’s water!!

Minibar provided but empty throughout.

No rep provided by easyJet which was disappointing but not the hotels fault!

One lift only but design of hotel they just didn’t think it through.

No mosquitoes whatsoever and no cockroaches really other than on our last day when a treatment had obviously been applied and they all came out to play which was a little disturbing and one hitched a lift back home to the uk which was an unexpected surprise.

Foam party one day which was amazing and the entertainment chap tries really hard but needs a sidekick to help him get support for AQUAGYM evening entertainment wasn’t awful but not amazing!

Biggest gripe was the queue for the bar! There is a 90 minute period in the evening when two dedicated car staff are required as demand is higher between about 8:30 and 10pm with 20 minute queue! It’s not hard to fix this, for this short period of time. The biggest issue is more larger beer glasses are needed, if your lucky enough to get a big glass then you queue less but it seemed on the whole that the larger glasses go to the Spanish guests. So the English get a 250ml glass so you queue back up much earlier than needed, again easy to fix if you want to fix, just get San Miguel to give you some more free pint glasses. Two cocktails of the day rotated every two days but pretty good!

Yes it needs a bit of tlc, we had two rooms and one of the rooms the showe isn’t sunk to the floor so the whole bathroom got wet and in the other the bathroom door didn’t close but minor in the big scheme of things.

Lastly the staff work really hard and a few stand out but all of the staff could go much further with their interactions with the guests that ultimately keep them in employment! Just one one staff member asked ‘are you having a good holiday’ (front desk) and some even come across as rude especially around the bar area! My wife speaks Spanish and overheard one staff member telling her colleague how annoying the English were si we killed her with kindness after this to make her life more wholesome!

Customer training would improve thus resort but as I said all in all was ok