BlueSea Lagos de Cesar

Arrival to the hotel was around 10.30pm off a late flight, where a sign on the unoccupied front desk asked us to do self check-in on a computer screen, which was not easy to do - the screen cleared a few times so had to enter data several times. Only when we spent 10 mins trying to do this, did a receptionist come out of the office to help, and they then did most of the check-in again manually. We got our wristbands, dropped bags in our room and then made a quick dash to get drinks before the all-inclusive bar closed at 11pm. Luckily we had stayed at a BLUESEA resort before so still had the same plastic eco-cups from 2022 in Lanzarote, which meant we didn't have to pay the cup deposit again. There is a good choice of drinks - pretty standard for any Spanish resort. The beer on tap was San Miguel, which is so much better than what you get in other resorts. The wine wasn't the greatest - the white tasted like retsina but the rosé/rosato was better. You could help yourself to wine and beer in the restaurant, during lunch and dinner. Cocktails were actually surprisingly good - and they did 2 different ones a day, rotating through about 4 favorites inclusive pina colada, mojito, strawberry daiquiri and blue lagoon. These included fruit, syrups and garnish so better than expected! Usual white spirits, local liqueurs and Irish cream liqueurs included too. There were long waits for next batch of freshly cooked meat if you didn't get there quick enough. Often there was no meat, but plenty of local fish and seafood paella. The salad was OK, but the selection is not as good as what you get in Greek all-inclusive hotels. Breakfast wasn't too bad - decent bacon and sausages seemed to alternate days. Fried eggs and scrambled eggs always available. Sometimes hash browns, and breakfast churros most days! The room had excellent air conditioning in both the living room and the bedroom. The TV was Smart and I'd recommend bringing a Firestick type device to get your streaming services as it wasn't built in. Wi-Fi was amazing all over the hotel from the rooms to the restaurant, only slightly dropping in certain edges of the pool area. Also worth pointing out you can keep your all-inclusive bands after you check-out at 12 noon, meaning you can get drinks and food until your transfer if on a package deal - we didn't get picked up til 7pm. We generally enjoyed our stay and would consider coming again if there was a cheaper deal outside of summer.

First the good!! Rooms were clean and the WIFI was very good. Right…. Now bad things.. upon arrival there were mosquitoes flying all around in reception area (tbf it was 11pm) when getting to our room it was very basic there were no drawers or cupboards at all apart from 1 wardrobe between 3 of us. The bathroom smelled of stale urine all week despite being cleaned every day. The range of food in the dining room was terrible coffee machines were constantly broken. Some mornings we had to wait 10mins for them to bring out bacon, fried eggs and pancakes. We had to eat out several lunch and dinner times as the selection and quality of food was shocking. Also no coffee available at these times in dining room. Paid 10euro deposits for pool towels which is fine until we were told that if we wanted to exchange for clean ones we had to pay 1euro. The pool (if thats what you can call it) was small and looked very drab and uninviting . It didn’t open until 10am so could get out to spend time on the sunbeds before then. The pool bar opens at 10.30 but if you want a drink you have to ‘rent a plastic cup’ for 1euro. They did give you a clean one if you asked. There were hardly any tables to sit at around pool and nowhere else to sit around the hotel during the day. Only 2 cocktails available at pool bar in the daytime. Only snacks available in the day were slices of bread in a cabinet on pool bar and a countertop fridge containing cheese ham and a bit of salad. And small pots of ice cream . The evening bar got very stuffy at night, no air con and the entertainment program was poor. There was only 1 entertainment staff day and night and she tried her best. On the last day there was no late checkout available so we were told we had to use the showers on the rooftop terrace (all In front of anyone who was relaxing on sunbeds). There was no hot water to the showers were freezing cold. There was nowhere for us to get dried and dressed so had to all way down to reception wrapped in towels and lock ourselves in luggage room to get dressed. It seems like the hotel was being run on the bare minimum of staff as it was always the same staff working. In our opinion this hotel should be a maximum of 3* which we think is more than generous. We have stayed in plenty of 3* hotels better than this one.