Costa Sal Apartments Reviews

this places was good, too many stairs tho - specially if your in crutches! i liked the food however my two friends i was with could bare to even look at there meal never mind eat it! the supermarket seem a bit expensive 41 pound for essentials bread milk water juice etc. i would defiently go back, there is basically no nightlife here tho which is good because you can get a good sleep and its only a short ride into peurto del carmen which is eye opening its great i would recommend ' the big apple ' bar its really good! and 928 this a nightclub which was really amazing, matagorda would be good for families and peurto del carmen i would recommend for young people out on the pull.

Just returned from our 3rd visit to the Costa Sal and our 4th to Matagorda, over the last 5 years or so.

When we visited the Costa Sal two years ago we came back a little disappointed � you can probably search back through the previous reports on here and find our report.

This year was an improvement on last time and we had a good time.

This year we had a two bedroom apartment and it gave us much more space and a bedroom for our daughter rather than her sharing with her mum and m e ending up on the sofa bed in the lounge! The apartment was clean and reasonably well furnished. The kitchen had a hob, oven, toaster, kettle, fridge, and ample crockery and cutlery. In the lounge was a tv, settee and armchair. Bathroom was clean and a good size. The bedrooms were great with lots of wardrobe space. Overall it was well worth the upgrade from a one bedroom apartment. It just felt a lot bigger, and was better looked after.

The complex was not very busy and we had no problem with getting sunbeds by the smaller heated pool, though, as usual, the odd British family (particularly towards the end of our week) liked to reserve about eight in a row and then proceed to not use them for the majority of the day! Why???

There�s nothing much to do onsite in the evenings. The bar is ok, but not the most attractive. Staff are friendly though. Tuesday nights they hold a barbecue at a reasonable price with a singer to provide entertainment. We gave it a miss this year as we had done it a couple of times before.

Tip �� for evenings entertainment, particularly if you have kids, head down the road to the Sol Lanzarote and grab a comfy chair and watch their shows. So long as you are buying drinks, they don�t mind. Or, try the Beatriz Playa a little further along the promenade.

So, overall, a better holiday than two years ago. Mainly due to a better apartment, in a quieter bit of a generally quiet complex. Oh, apart from the Irish family who arrived late at night next door on our last night and made enough noise for twenty � a total lack of consideration, but typical of society today.

We would be more than happy to go back again, but probably when we want a reasonably priced, mid winter/spring break and not necessarily our main holiday of

We have just returned from a 2 week stay at the Costa Sal, where we had a great time. It was our first visit to Lanzarote (or any of the Canaries) so we were not too sure what expect weather wise.

The weather overall was excellent. The constant breeze we were told was there was indeed there, and it got quite windy never mind breezy. Mind you, it was always sunny as well so you still had to be very careful. The second week got VERY hot for a few days (officially reached 104 F), but it started to cool again before we left.

The area of Matagorda is very close to the airport, and we were warned that the noise could be quite obtrusive. While it was noticeable for a day or 2, we quickly got used to it, and it became part of the holiday for the kids, trying to identify the different airlines.

The complex is quite large with a mix of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments and bungalows, set out in nicely kept gardens. We stayed in one of the 2-bedroom bungalows, and we were impressed with the accommodation. The living are was very spacious and was air conditioned, the bedrooms had lots of cupboard space, pretty standard bathroom with a hairdryer, and a well equipped kitchen. The rooms even had wooden shutters on the windows (as well as curtains), to keep any unwanted morning sunshine out if you wanted a lie in. There was also an enclosed drying area, 2 sun loungers in our front patio area as well as a table and chairs. Oh, and there was an iron and ironing board provided as well, so we didn't need to bring ours after all (iron that is, not the board !)

We were visited by the maid most days, and towels were replaced regularly. However, the bed sheets were only replaced once which I did not think was often enough, as it did get quite sweaty a night. Only other complaint with the accommodation was the television - poor choice of English speaking channels (BBC World - very boring, Sky News - OK for 15 minutes then everything is repeated every 15 minutes, Eurosport with poor reception, and a couple of channels with Arabic subtitles). Don't get me wrong, we didn't watch it much, but it would have been nice to have better channels for when the kids were in bed.

The swimming pools were good, albeit cold in the first week. The main pool is in the upper apartments area, and is a freeform salt-water pool. Only complaint is there is no ";in-between"; depth - it is either 0.45m in the small kids pool or minimum 1.2m in the main one. Not ideal for bigger kids who are really a bit big for the small pool but not confident enough for the deeper water. Plenty of sunbeds, and and managed to get 2 every time we went.

The smaller pool is in the bungalows area and is freshwater. It is allegedly heated, but it certainly didn't feel it ! Same complaint with the water depth though - it was also very shallow or very deep. Sunbeds were a problem here though. Virtually every one was reserved, presumably by those with bungalows around the pool - the towels were even still out at night when we passed. WHY ????? Are people really so selfish they can't let anyone else use a bed while they are out for the morning/afternoon ? If the beds were left free and everyone used a bed when they wanted it then left it free when they were finished, there would be no problems. Oh, and the clientele was British/Irish, no Germans to blame here !

There are a number of ";extra"; facilities on-site - tennis (2 courts), laundry, beauty/massage, internet, games room - but we didn't use any of them. There is a small but well stocked supermarket. It's handy for essential, but more expensive than the 2 supermarkets in the commercial centre only 5 minutes walk away. The is also a formal restaurant and a snack bar, as well as a bar and pool bar. The restaurant was nice, but again a bit pricy compared to the others in the centre. There were themed nights for the meals (barbecue, paella and others I can't remember, but there was no actual entertainment on-site.

Overall, the accommodation was very good. Even though my tone may come across slightly negative, these are all minor issues and we had no problems to speak of.

The resort itself is fairly quiet, which suited us. There are lots of restaurants in the commercial centre, covering all tastes - Indian, Chinese, as well as the ";normal"; Spanish/Canarian restaurants which catered for virtually every taste. Those worth a mention were La Brisa, Sirocco, Timbayba, the largest of the 3 Chinese restaurants ";Xing Fu"; (I think !), and Steve's Balti (the Indian, which is upstairs). Average price for 3 a course meal including drinks for 2 adults and 2 children was 70 euros.

One thing that surprised me about the resort is it is very Irish oriented (no offence meant by this - the ones we met were great people !). There were a large amount of Irish guests at the Costa Sal, and there were also lots of Irish bars as well.

It is worth touring the island by car. It is easy to drive in, as the roads are fairly quiet. Montanas Del Fuego are a must visit - 8 euro entry fee (kids are free) includes the bus tour around the volcanoes which is breathtaking. Also worth visiting is the Rancho Texas Park just outside Puerto del Carmen (a small themed zoo), and the Submarine Safari at Puerto Calero (not cheap but was excellent).

So a great time had by all 4 of us. I expect we will return to Lanzarote, but the wife likes the look of Playa Blanca ....

Review: Costa Sal Apartments and Bungalows - Matagorda, Lanzarote.

Arrival 16th May 2007, Departure 31st May 2007.

We were a party of 7, arriving in two hire cars and we found easy parking just a few yards from the well lit reception entrance.

Our registration details were processed very quickly by the staff at the reception desk and we only needed to show one passport for identity purposes. We were given our keys (for our 2 apartments) and given a little map of the site layout with our apartments marked on it.

Our apartments were conveniently close to each other (one at ground level and one on the 1st floor level).

First impressions were good, simply styled, ceramic floor tiled throughout and simple functional furniture. The upper apartment of the two however had a slight smell of waste water (a surprisingly common smell in Lanzarote!), but this became less obtrusive as we got used to it. Although the apartments were tidy and attractive, it soon became apparent that cleaning and maintenance were below par. The floor was generally clean but there was still quite a bit of dirt, dead insects and hair in corners, against kitchen units and behind doors. The kitchen units themselves were tatty looking with poor fitting doors and drawers, the surfaces were clean but very chipped and stained. The electric kettle looked fairly old and it's cable had alarmingly been repaired with an elastoplast where the insulation had been melted away on the cooker hob. The single mains socket near the kettle was cracked and was barely fixed to the wall, wobbling and exposing large gaps whenever the kettle was unplugged. The cooker hob was very old and had a great deal of dirt in places. We later discovered that operating the electric oven randomly caused the apartment's circuit breaker to trip, who knows what electrical horrors lurked behind the scenes.

The supplies of cutlery, crockery and other basic kitchen utensils were sadly lacking. Our apartment was booked for 5 people yet there were only 2 glasses, 4 sets of knives and forks and no scissors or vegetable knives. The bread knife was long past it's best, blunt and with it's tip snapped off.

Controls for the air-conditioning were in the kitchen area. Sadly these did not do anything until the system is enabled in July.

The main bedroom was simply but attractively decorated. One of the cupboards housed a digital safe (for which you must hire an activation key at ?14pw). The cupboards were roomy with both shelved areas and hanging space. The beds were single beds, with poorly fitted plastic mattresses but with crisp clean white sheets. The simple covers consisted of a white sheet and a coarse decorated cover. In practise, you rarely needed more than a single sheet on top of you at night. More scary electrics became evident during a search for a mains socket to plug in a mosquito killer. I pulled the bedside cabinet away from the wall slightly to reveal an outlet with one of the socket holes occupied by a piece of metal that was protruding out. It was potentially live (as the sockets have no switches), but I didn't dare to try and remove the offending metal object. This was very alarming, if my children had discovered this socket then the consequences don't bare contemplation.

The second bedroom was identical to the the first (but no safe of course). Incidently, all the beds have a large headboard that simply leans against the wall (not fixed to anything in fact), resulting in loud knocking noises for any tiny movement. The only solution to this is to pull the beds away from the wall a little, but your pillow is in danger of falling off the end!

The bathroom was fairly well equipped, complete with a shower/bath, bidet, basin and loo. There was a mains socket and wall-mounted hairdryer which had been badly damaged and looked unsafe to use. The window in the bathroom refused to stay shut so had to be wedged shut with some folded paper. Additionally there only seemed to be one sink plug to share between the bath, bidet and basin, not a great problem, but occasionally inconvenient. Hot water was pretty scarce at times, particularly after around 9am. Incidently, the apartments were completely without hot water for at least 2 full days during our 14 day holiday.

The electricity supply to the apartments in general was fairly unreliable, we suffered 3 lengthy power cuts (which seemed to be confined to just a few rows of apartments). One of the power cuts meant that we had to retire to bed early, curtailing a game of cards at a most critical moment! Interestingly, the lack of electricity also meant that the water supply was cut off, presumably the water is pumped by electric pump from somewhere.

The small balcony area on the upper apartment was equipped with four chairs and a table. Some balconies had parasols, but ours didn't. The fence around the balcony was made of wood and clearly quite rotten in places, this also applies to the window frames. The woodwork wasn't at a critical stage but it wasn't far off.

Other than the numerous but relatively small problems in the apartments, the rooms were comfortable and enjoyable.

As an aside, for our first 2 nights we suffered a great deal of noise from some neighbours who thought it fun to shout, bang, swear and run around at both 11pm and 4am! The management were extremely sympathetic and arranged for us to move apartments without delay. They then arranged for a holiday rep to speak to the noisy neighbours to ask them to be more considerate to others. That was the end of the matter and we were extremely grateful for the management's swift positive action. Our own rep said that a problem of that sort is extremely rare for Costa Sal.

The complex of apartments and bungalows is serviced by a main reception area, mini-supermarket, snack bar, games room, 4 internet PCs (at ?1 per 10mins), 2 tennis courts, 2 swimming pools (one large un-heated salt water pool and one barely-heated chlorinated pool).

The larger pool in the centre of the complex is un-heated and filled with salt water. Although this doesn't appear to be a problem, my children told me that it caused their eyes to sting and caused their minor grazes to sting. It also felt ";sticky"; when drying, just like sea water.

The smaller of the two pools was slightly heated and filled with chlorinated water. It was a little more inconveniently placed towards the edge of the complex. There were a fair number of sun-loungers available around the pool but just 2 parasols (fixed into the ground). We did notice 2 or 3 movable parasol stands, but no parasols to go with them. If we had a parasol in our balcony then we could have used that.

The pool itself was clean and clear, but cool! Occasionally we noticed that the water jets in the pool were pumping out warm(ish!) water, but most of the time it was most definately un-heated. The temperature of the water didn't really affect the children's enjoyment, but the adults seemed to notice it more!

Back to the main building. The snack bar is quite large with two areas with plenty of seating and tables, some of which look out onto the main pool. The snack bar appears to be open most of the time, but during quiet periods it can be frustating trying to find a member of staff. Prices are generally pretty high, a typical baguette costs around ?4, whereas in the shopping areas of nearby Matagorda the prices were closer to ?2.

The small supermarket in the basement of the main building provided a pretty good selection of food and non-food items. Fresh produce was available, including a very good selection of local bread, fresh and cooked meats, cheeses, yoghurts and milk. Prices seemed reasonable, only slightly higher than prices in the nearby Spa. The chillers didn't seem very chilly though and the longevity of milk we purchased was shorter than expected even though we stored it in a very cold fridge in our apartment.

The whole site appears fairly secure, with a walled boundary and electronic combination locked gates in various places. We weren't ";automatically"; informed of the combination number to get in through the locked gates, finding ourselves having to walk a little further round to the permanently open reception entrance on one occasion. Of course, we then asked for the combination to enable us to re-enter the site at various convenient points around the site. It's worth pointing out that the gates can make quite a loud clanging noise if left to swing shut and I imagine that the noise could be very annoying for occupants of apartments or bungalows close to them. In particular, bungalow number 701 was very close to one busy gate, so that at least is a number to avoid if possible.

Overall, the holiday was very enjoyable. Despite the problems, it must be borne in mind that the holiday is far more than just the apartment. However, in our experience of other First-Choice destinations, it seems that Costa Sal does not really deserve a 3 star rating. More attention to maintenance and levels of equipment could make a big difference to this potentially fab location.

The 4 of us arrived late at night and were given the keys and a location map of our bungalow. After only a few minutes we experienced our first power cut whilst unpacking. The response of the reception staff was at best indifferent and this experience continued throughout the fortnight.They are at best efficient and at worst unfriendly.

The bungalow itself was very acceptable and comfortable although (as has been previously been mentioned) it is starting to look a bit frayed around the edges. The maids come in regularly to change the towels and swish around with a brush but not very thoroughly I'm afraid. Also my daughter's mobile was tampered with so we reported it to reception. They investigated and told us the maid had 'dusted' it and did not mean any harm and was afraid of losing her job. We accepted this explanation but how she managed to get it off standby then through to the messages menu just by dusting it amazed us all! After this experience we thought the staff were even less friendly towards us - as if were were in the wrong.
Talking of friendly staff, has anyone ever seen the young barman smile?
Anyway enough of the negatives.

The complex is well set out and the gardens are lovely and the pools are brilliant. It is just a short walk to the sea and the promenade. In the Commercial Centre we would definitely reccomend the Trattoria Timbayba for a good English breakfast and also Hong Kong Island for a smashing but cheap special menu.
Lastly if you turn right and walk along the front (or cut through the Sol) a nice little walk will bring you firstly to Piccasos who do a great roast dinner. Walk a bit further and you'll find the Anchor Inn. Craig is a great singer and I don't think you will meet a nicer, friendlier host than Keith anywhere on that island or back home.