Landmar Costa Los Gigantes

Very Disappointing Stay. I choose this hotel because of good reviews and after my stay i really can’t understand where those opinion come from. I didn’t experience that great experiance everybody writing about. Far from it. From the moment we arrived late at night, our experience was disappointing. The rooms were extremely basic, the bathroom had only soap and a poor-quality all-in-one shower gel and shampoo, and three out of four electrical sockets did not work.!! I could properly charge my phone. The Dolce Gusto coffee machine broken downthe next day, and we had to spend the entire day asking staff to replace it. On the first day, my child accidentally broke a glass in the room and we asked the staff to clean it up. Unfortunately The pieces of glass were left scattered around the room, and I had to clean them up myself. The food was ok, but very basic. Very repetitive almost every day the same.

The biggest disappointment was the staff. Whenever we asked for help with some issues, we received nothing more than “I’m sorry”, with no real effort to resolve anything. The service often felt cold, unhelpful and unfriendly. In the restaurant, staff repeatedly said they did not understand the language whenever we asked for help, with little effort to assist us. The children’s entertainment and pool activities were actually nice for young children , and i could see the children had a good time. However, we were not informed that certain activities, such as the ropes course, had to be booked a day in advance and it was a bit disappointing especialy when you stay only couple of days. What was more concerning, I heard members of the entertainment team referring to children as “idiots” in Spanish. They should remember that parents are listening and some of us understand Spanish perfectly well. This behaviour is completely unacceptable from anyone working with children.

In my opinion, this hotel may suit families with children under 10 who are happy with basic facilities, but it is a poor choice for families with older children or parents who expect quality service and professionalism. <<<<<<<<

A holiday should be about relaxing and enjoying time with your family, not chasing staff to fix problems, cleaning up broken glass yourself and feeling ignored. Apologies mean nothing when no action follows, and insulting children is simply unacceptable.

Overall, despite some nice activities for children, the hotel fell far below our expectations. We did not feel valued as guests, and based on our experience, we would not return.

We stayed with our 12 year old from 15th - 22nd October and arrived home yesterday.

I read lots of mixed reviews before we came, so thought I would share our experience. I will say, all reviews are subjective and I appreciate people will have different experiences. I want to be balanced because there were both positives and negatives.

On check in, staff were friendly. We were early, so our room wasn't ready (as we had expected) but we had swim stuff in our backpacks and went for lunch, leaving suitcases in the storage room. At check in at 15.00, room still wasn't ready, told to come back as something was being fixed, noticed many other guests being told the same.

When we did check in to the ocean view room, our view wasnt the best, we were J305 - we had a sea view in the distance after the next resident block.

The room we had needed a refurb, as does much of the resort. Fridge was rusty, bathroom door got stuck (no locks), handle on balcony door was wobbly, rust on bath, broken coffee machine and general wear and tear. We observed lots of slippery parts round the resorts and things not working e.g. pool table taking our money and not releasing balls - reception however did refund us, but it is a bit inconvenient needing to go up from ground floor to reception on third floor (as no one appeared available to help in the arcade section).

Housekeeping- cleaners did a good job and rooms were cleaned daily. Always say hello (Hola) as they see you round the resort.

Animation team. Overall we thought they were good, we liked the pool games, including the running mat, inflatables on Wednesday, and aqua aerobics. Sadly however my husband overheard one of the staff call our son an idiot in his language which isnt acceptable.

Health and safety concerns: A glass was smashed in the evening at the sunset bar. We informed bar staff but was told it wasnt their job and we should find a waiter. We told a waiter, they said they would come over: he was heading off towards the bar with a full trolly of glasses and we assumed he would come back. We waited over 10mins and my husband went to find another waiter and was told by the waiter "ok" and walked in the opposite direction and again assumed they would come back but they never did. There were a couple of toddlers in bare feet running around near the glass and we didn't want them to get hurt. No one came..., really concerning the disregard for safety. We tried our best to clean the area ourselves and pulled chairs around the glass, as we needed to leave.

My husband also noticed chips which had been dropped near the pool and told a lifeguard; their response was that they could radio through, (as they have done in the past) but nothing would be done so they dont bother anymore.

Guests - this is of course not the hotels fault but really contributed negatively to our experience:

Firstly, the rubbish we saw people leave everyday around the pool, football pitches etc was disgusting! There are bins around the resort, how hard is it to clean up after yourself?!

Two code brown incidents, one at the activity pool closing half of it on day 1 and another in the baby pool later in the week.

Also parents not really minding their children. We had a family next to us with a daughter being purposely dunked in the pool repeatedly by another child. The hotel I think gave their child a gift from the landi shop to cheer her up, which was nice...

Our son (who is SEN) was targeted by some child and a group throughout the week, with them trying to intimidate him with bully behaviours. We even witnessed the child trying to force feed a chip into our sons mouth to show dominance to his group. This led to our son being extremely anxious throughout the week. After speaking to one parent we were advised not to approach the other parent of the bully child as they were heavily intoxicated and quite aggressive, often swearing at their children; so this was unlikely to find a resolution.

I will say the behaviours above in terms of bullying seemed to be more UK guests, the German, French and Spanish guests we encountered were really inclusive and kind to our son, always including him in games which we really appreciated. Quite shameful as we are from the UK ourselves that other countries may assume us to behave this way too.

Food: I struggle to understand why people think this is good..., we found options limited, repetitive, and food basic overall.

Drinks - cocktails, poor quality. The costa los gigantes was probably the best option, mainly as they used lots of syrup!

Bar staff - only 1 employee at bar areas during the day that we witnessed, and the sewage smell really isnt nice around the activity pool.

Facilities: Teen club: our son didnt use the teen area, mainly due to concerns of encountering bullies and we were told by another family, parents cant observe in this area so skipped this.

Football: was a hit with our son and our main reason for booking. Could do with a tidy up but still very usable. Tennis and basket ball also looked good and our son played a game of crazy golf too.

Pools - the only pool we noticed to be heated was at half of the activity pool which was nice. The others were much cooler.

High ropes - didnt use, so cant comment.

Slides - our son was not too fused using these really, probably better suited for younger children.

Aracdes - not much really to use other than the grab type ticket machines. VR machines seemed to be off during our stay.

Zip line - looked unsafe.

Would we return, unfortunately not. As a cheaper resort this seemed reflective to our experience where you get what you pay for and it attracts the wrong type of guests which we would rather avoid.

On arrival there was issues with allocation of my familys 2 rooms . My daughter was put with my husband and i was put with my son, instead of my daughter having her own room and me getting put in a room with my husband and son i had already paid extra for my daughter to have her own room. Duplex and landi room as they were the only rooms available when we booked. When i quiried this i was told that there would be a 180 euro charge to upgrade my daughters room to landi needed to go away and wait for rooms to get sorted out. Wed presumed this had been rectified my daughter checked into her room there was no landi extras such as a green towel, robe,slippers and snacks. Wheras in my landi room there was the extras. I then messaged the landi representative martha to ask why this hadnt been added to my daughters room and she said she would sort out. It was eventually sorted out after a few days but my daughter only recived the snacks no green towel,robe or slippers. For the cost of landi extras deffinetly not worth paying the extras. Only get room extras, few extra landi sunbeds, small landi restraunt section, and a cocktail bar by the landi pool and an annoying landi representative who was very loud and in your face all the time. The bar was only opened till 5 and you could get the cocktails at the regular pool bar. When i aksed why the bar shut at 5 i was informed it was to help the other bar shut at 6. DO NOT PAY FOR LANDI waste of money. Duplex room smelt of damp very old furniture. My daughter didnt feel very safe so she spent all her time in the room upstairs on second floor and downstairs tv wasnt working either. My sea view room was located in a sort of old hotel and there was drillig for 3 days from early in the morning from downstairs. We preferred were we stayed before in april which was sea view in block H nice walk in evening and next door to one another. Apart from this had a really lovely time. Good parts were food swimming pools and athmosphere staff are always lovely. Short taxi rides 4 euroes down to the beach and harbour which are definitely worth visting whilst there, and a lovely new shop called ale hop. Definitely recomend private transfer only took 30 mins from airport same cost as booking through tui. Hope to be back soon!