Bakour Lanzarote Splash

Just returned from one week at this hotel. The hotel is very clean, the rooms were amazing. We were in a 2bedroom at the back of the complex overlooking the splash pool. Was lovely sitting out on balcony in the evening enjoying a quiet drink although many ground floor apartments don't have the level of privacy we did. They are modern and the showers are fab.

The next biggest plus was the animation team, I can't think of his name but the guy with the mustache and dreads, he puts his heart and soul into entertaining the kids and is very thoughtful and considerate particularly with kids that were shy and found it hard to join in. He is a real asset to the hotel.

The food was hit and miss. If you found something you could eat, it nearly always tasted fresh and incredible but we found ourselves as a group trying to avoid eating here. We went next door to Lidl for pastries at breakfast and ate out for dinner and availed of the snack bar for lunch. There seems to be one guy trying to manage everything behind the counter so at times there were huge queues for a fried egg or an omelette. If you want to avoid the wait times you could go earlier but I wish they would give this guy some back up. We spoke to some guests who had been there over previous years and the said they felt the numbers of staff had reduced. Maybe this is what it wrong here they are short staffed but it definitely made us avoid the dining room. Also just personal preference but didn't like having to go down into that very warm space for every mealtime, not sure what the hotel can do about that as it's on a small enough footprint but would have been nice to have option to eat meals above ground too, outside of the pool snack bar which has been commented on already in previous posts. Agree this guy doesn't come across the friendliest, I never found him rude, but in fairness he is stuck inside this tiny corner unit on his own with hot pans and cookers etc for hours. And wait times for a quick poolside snack were sometimes up to 40 minutes.

The entertainment in the evening wasn't great. It largely happens in this small space above reception and the heat can be stifling. Mostly just standing space as seating is very limited. It was just enough to entertain our 4-7 year old group but they honestly preferred just running around outside with other kids.

The final piece I want to write about is the biggest reason we would not return here. On the Sunday we arrived very soon after a very tragic incident which saw a couple lose their 4 year old child. Firstly I want to say how heartbroken I am for them and secondly I want to say how disappointed I was in the hotel for not acknowledging what had happened somehow. The very least could have been a minutes silence on the weeks anniversary, or a closing of that one pool for a day but nothing, it just felt like business as usual yet you could feel this dark cloud, it was palpable at times. We saw the lifeguards patroling around but spoke to so many guests who told us they hadn't seen this behaviour in the days previous, they'd seen them sitting in chairs at pool level height on their phones. How upsetting it must have been for the parents to suddenly see what should be standard lifeguard behavior after the fact. Doing something for the guests who witnessed the tragic event unfold, acknowledging it happened at your hotel is not owning culpability, its human compassion to allow space to say this happened here and we are all heartbroken for the family and those who tried to help.

For the parents and little brother I will always keep you in my prayers. May you find peace knowing you will see your little girl again.

I have mixed feelings about our stay here. When we checked in we were told they had ‘upgraded’ our room. We soon realised that they needed our room because the hotel had overbooked our room type and instead of a bed in the second bedroom for our eldest they were trying to give us bunk beds. After a lot of back and forth we ended up checking in to our original room type.
The pools were fab for our youngest children and provided much entertainment for the first couple of days. Unfortunately we had to get up at 7 each day just to guarantee a sun bed. There was lots of room for more sun beds but they seemed to be lacking in this area. There were also people putting towels down and not coming to the pool until mid day- this needs looking into by staff.
The snack bar food could only be eaten by the bar to keep the pool areas clean, however, there were never any chairs at the bar so you’d end up standing to eat your food. We found the food selection in the restaurant good, there was only one night (a themed evening) where the food selection wasn’t great. The staff in the restaurant were always nice and accommodating, there was however one chef that cooked the fried eggs and omelettes in the morning that I found to be quite rude and pulled faces if he didn’t understand your request. You also had to queue every day for breakfast lunch and dinner whilst they found you a table. The rooms were cleaned thoroughly, daily and fresh towels were always provided. The entertainment we didn’t really partake it, there were not enough seats for everyone to watch and the entertainment crew didn’t speak to our children at all. At previous resorts they have always come over and tried to involve our children in activities but this didn’t happen and it seemed to be the Spanish and French children taking part - a lot of the staff didn’t speak English well or at all so I suspect this might be the case here. It’s not somewhere I would return to and wouldn’t recommend