Elba Lanzarote Royal Village Resort

Was a lovely hotel and adult food area was excellent and staff was lovely. The family restaurant area was mad and far too busy and the food was cold. I cannot really fault anything else as everything was really good. The only fault was we needed to keep our room on and willing to pay for it but the lass on reception who clearly shouldn’t be in that line of work as not only was she scruffy with half attempt bleached blonde hair and short of a wash was rude unpleasant and not even willing to help. We had a 2 year old baby and a blind person who required daily requirement and her answer was “NO” you can try booking a room on internet along with lots of other rude things and she may as well just walked away and it was like a scene from David Williams “ computer said no” so if your staying here “ AVOID HER” she’s far too rude. Apart from that it was a lovely stay.

We’re half way through our holiday and, most importantly, our children are having a brilliant time. The pools are lovely, the splash pad is fantastic for younger children with four little slides that keep both our 2 and 4-year-old entertained for hours, and the larger slides into the main pool are great fun too. The animation team work incredibly hard and do a great job keeping children entertained, and the kids’ club is excellent. Even if your children are too young to be left there, parents can stay with them so they can still enjoy the soft play, colouring and activities. My only concern is that the entrance gate to the kids’ club is constantly left open, so we never feel comfortable leaving our children unattended.

The hotel has some good facilities, and the staff are generally friendly and welcoming. However, there are enough issues that I don’t feel this is a genuine 4-star hotel.

We arrive just after midnight with a very tired 4-year-old and 2-year-old. We’ve requested a cot through TUI well in advance, but there isn’t one in the room. We have no choice but to have our 2-year-old sleep in our bed for the first night. When we ask at reception the following morning, they confirm they are aware of the request but simply say it will be brought to the room “at some point,” which isn’t exactly reassuring.

The biggest frustration throughout the holiday is getting a drink. Around the pool during the day and at the evening bar, there is almost always a queue of 15–20 people because only one person is serving the entire very long bar. It means spending a significant amount of time queuing instead of enjoying the holiday. This really feels like a management issue, because there are plenty of staff around during meals, clearing tables and tidying away, but no one seems to be deployed to the bars where guests are trying to get drinks. For an all-inclusive hotel, that means people simply aren’t able to make proper use of the drinks they have paid for. At lunch and dinner, guests aren’t allowed to help themselves from the soft drink machines because it’s table service, which seems completely unnecessary. Most of the staff (not all, but certainly the majority) act as though asking for a drink at the start of the meal is an inconvenience. Asking for a second drink is usually pointless – more than once we are told it will be brought over, only for it never to arrive. For a family-friendly all-inclusive hotel, the drinks service is easily the weakest part of the experience.

The food is also disappointing. While it is generally well cooked, there is very little variety and lunch and dinner are almost identical from one day to the next. After a few days it becomes very repetitive.

We also feel the room description is misleading. It advertises a “separate living and bedroom area”, which suggests there will be two distinct spaces. In reality, it’s just one room with a sofa and a TV. As the sofa has to be made up as a bed to accommodate the number of guests the room is advertised to sleep, there isn’t really a separate living area at all.

Housekeeping is inconsistent. The glass recycling bins around the pool are constantly overflowing, even first thing in the morning, suggesting they aren’t being emptied at the end of each day. On one occasion we leave all of our towels in the shower to be replaced, but housekeeping rehangs at least two of the used towels and only provides two fresh ones, which seems very odd for a family of four.

Overall, we are enjoying our holiday because the facilities for children are genuinely very good, and our kids are having an amazing time. However, the hotel falls short of what I’d expect from a 4-star property. The bars are woefully understaffed, and management really needs to look at how staff are deployed, because the queues and lack of bar staff are preventing guests from making proper use of the all-inclusive drinks. It is baffling to see plenty of staff busy during meals while the bars are left short-handed. With better staffing levels, improved food variety and more attention to the smaller details, this hotel could be much better, but in its current state I don’t think it lives up to its 4-star rating.

The hotel has some good facilities, and the staff were generally friendly and welcoming. However, there were enough issues that I don’t feel this is a genuine 4-star hotel.

We arrived just after midnight with a very tired 4-year-old and 2-year-old. We’d requested a cot through TUI well in advance, but there wasn’t one in the room. We had no choice but to have our 2-year-old sleep in our bed for the first night. When we asked at reception the following morning, they confirmed they were aware of the request but simply said it would be brought to the room “at some point,” which wasn’t exactly reassuring.

The biggest frustration throughout the holiday was getting a drink. Around the pool during the day and at the evening bar, there was almost always a queue of 15–20 people because only one person was serving the entire (very long) bar. It meant spending a significant amount of time queuing instead of enjoying the holiday. At lunch and dinner, guests aren’t allowed to help themselves from the soft drink machines because it’s table service, which seemed completely unnecessary. Most of the staff (not all, but certainly the majority) acted as though asking for a drink at the start of the meal was an inconvenience. Asking for a second drink was usually pointless – more than once we were told it would be brought over, only for it never to arrive. For a family-friendly all-inclusive hotel, the drinks service was easily the weakest part of the experience.

The food was also disappointing. While it was generally well cooked, there was very little variety and lunch and dinner were almost identical from one day to the next. After a few days it became very repetitive.

We also felt the room description was misleading. It advertised a “separate living and bedroom area”, which suggested there would be two distinct spaces. In reality, it’s just one room with a sofa and a TV. As the sofa had to be made up as a bed to accommodate the number of guests the room is advertised to sleep, there wasn’t really a separate living area at all.

Housekeeping was inconsistent. The glass recycling bins around the pool were constantly overflowing, even first thing in the morning, suggesting they weren’t being emptied at the end of each day. On one occasion we left all of our towels in the shower to be replaced, but housekeeping rehung at least two of the used towels and only provided two fresh ones, which seemed very odd for a family of four.

Overall, we had a good holiday and, most importantly, our children had a brilliant time. The pools are lovely, the splash pad is fantastic for younger children with four little slides that kept both our 2 and 4-year-old entertained for hours, and the larger slides into the main pool are great fun too. The animation team work incredibly hard and do a great job keeping children entertained, and the kids’ club is excellent. Even if your children are too young to be left there, parents can stay with them so they can still enjoy the soft play, colouring and activities. My only concern was that the entrance gate to the kids’ club was constantly left open, so we never felt comfortable leaving our children unattended.

The hotel has some good facilities, and the staff were generally friendly and welcoming. However, there were enough issues that I don’t feel this is a genuine 4-star hotel.

We arrived just after midnight with a very tired 4-year-old and 2-year-old. We’d requested a cot through TUI well in advance, but there wasn’t one in the room. We had no choice but to have our 2-year-old sleep in our bed for the first night. When we asked at reception the following morning, they confirmed they were aware of the request but simply said it would be brought to the room “at some point,” which wasn’t exactly reassuring.

The biggest frustration throughout the holiday was getting a drink. Around the pool during the day and at the evening bar, there was almost always a queue of 15–20 people because only one person was serving the entire very long bar. It meant spending a significant amount of time queuing instead of enjoying the holiday. This really feels like a management issue, because there were plenty of staff around during meals, clearing tables and tidying away, but no one seemed to be deployed to the bars where guests were trying to get drinks. For an all-inclusive hotel, that meant people simply weren’t able to make proper use of the drinks they had paid for. At lunch and dinner, guests aren’t allowed to help themselves from the soft drink machines because it’s table service, which seemed completely unnecessary. Most of the staff (not all, but certainly the majority) acted as though asking for a drink at the start of the meal was an inconvenience. Asking for a second drink was usually pointless – more than once we were told it would be brought over, only for it never to arrive. For a family-friendly all-inclusive hotel, the drinks service was easily the weakest part of the experience.

The food was also disappointing. While it was generally well cooked, there was very little variety and lunch and dinner were almost identical from one day to the next. After a few days it became very repetitive.

We also felt the room description was misleading. It advertised a “separate living and bedroom area”, which suggested there would be two distinct spaces. In reality, it’s just one room with a sofa and a TV. As the sofa had to be made up as a bed to accommodate the number of guests the room is advertised to sleep, there wasn’t really a separate living area at all.

Housekeeping was inconsistent. The glass recycling bins around the pool were constantly overflowing, even first thing in the morning, suggesting they weren’t being emptied at the end of each day. On one occasion we left all of our towels in the shower to be replaced, but housekeeping rehung at least two of the used towels and only provided two fresh ones, which seemed very odd for a family of four.

Overall, we enjoyed our holiday because the facilities for children are genuinely very good, and our kids had an amazing time. However, the hotel falls short of what I’d expect from a 4-star property. The bars were woefully understaffed, and management really needs to look at how staff are deployed, because the queues and lack of bar staff were preventing guests from making proper use of the all-inclusive drinks. It was baffling to see plenty of staff busy during meals while the bars were left short-handed. With better staffing levels, improved food variety and more attention to the smaller details, this hotel could be much better, but in its current state I don’t think it lives up to its 4-star rating.

I stayed here with my 2 children for 1 week on an all inclusive basis. This is a nice hotel which deserves its 4 stars. We booked direct, and saved money by doing so. Hotel is clean, well maintained. No sunbed wars, lots of beds available all day with umbrellas. Good choice of food for adults, although my children didnt venture beyond the chips. Location is good, a 15 min walk into Playa Blanca, but same walk back has a slight incline, taxis cheap though, 4 euro would get you back. Daytime entertainment very good, kids enjoyed the water polo etc in pool. Spa is lovely, myself and my daughter had a nice back massage. Rooms cleaned daily, beds changed once per the 7 day stay. 2 litre water left in room daily, fridge useless!. Coffee machine (Nespresso) is good. only 4 pods given though.

A couple of negatives: no airconditioning in buffet restaurant, nor in theatre, or in bar area. This meant that when we finished eating we removed ourselves outside as was too hot. therefore I cant comment on entertainment at evening as we couldnt see/hear it. In addition, the cocktails available on AI were very limited. I also found that there was a delay in getting tables cleared - dont get me wrong, there were clean tables available, but I like to be close to the food to limit my walking with plates (disabled), and i found it hard to get a cleared/newly set table.

People are dirty! not the hotel's fault, but why cant people bring their drink cups back to supplied bins at the pool area?? I stayed in a hotel once where if you didnt return your cup you didnt/couldnt get another drink, this hotel needs to employ some kinda policy to help with the cleaning.

I would return, however the AC issue in the communal areas was a put off.