Dreams Lanzarote Playa Dorada

We’re currently half way through a 9 night stay. And I can honestly say that I’m quite disappointed with the Grand Hyatt Lanzarote.

Having stayed at two Hyatt hotels before, I thought this would also be a good choice. However, there are a number of things that have let us down so far.

On day of arrival, we had a warm seamless check-in at reception, where we were offered a welcome drink and cold towel. We were told we would have to wait an hour for our room to be cleaned. I have no problem with waiting, as room check-in was not until 3 pm.

We decided to have lunch at the buffet restaurant, and this is where we started to wonder if this hotel was the right choice. This might sound trivial but the limited and repetitive food options - It’s the kind of selection I’d expect at a more budget friendly resort. Not a great start.

For breakfast, Coffee is served from a self-service machine. We’ve had this in other resorts, but there were more options for the type of hot drink you would like, and they tasted good. The coffee here is not good. There is a cafe that opens at 10.30, which does decent coffee, but you are not allowed to take it out of the cafe. It had to be consumed there.

When we did get to our room, although on the surface the room appeared to be clean, the floor actually wasn’t. It felt quite sticky in places and there were bits of fluff all around the floor. Whilst I understand that a detailed clean may not be done on a daily basis. I would expect a thorough clean to be done when rooms are prepared for new guests. We had to request for the floor to be cleaned again. I still don’t think that this has been done as you’ll be able to see from the state of the slippers they provide (which have only been used in the room!)

We also found that the consistency of cleaning was not up to par. The first two days the room was cleaned before we got back from breakfast. Today, although the cleaners had done the other rooms next to us, they just didn’t do ours. We had to request for them to come and clean up. Items like shower caps, vanity kits and basic hand soap not being provided when running low.

The Air-conditioning in the room also doesn’t seem to be working properly. Even on the coolest setting the room does not get cold, in fact in the evening it seems to be cooler outside compared to in the room. It’s led a few uncomfortable nights of sleep.

We did address this through the site/app, and they advised that it’s been looked at, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.

There are three alacarte restaurants, we’ve been to two of them so far. The food in the Italian restaurant was quite good, but there was a communication issue as the lady serving us couldn’t speak English. We thought she went to get a colleague to help us with ordering, but no one came. This led to a 40-minute wait for my son to get his food.

The Asian restaurant was a disappointment for the main courses we ordered. The starters were good, but both the Pad Thai and Red Chicken Curry were nothing like what they should have been. Again, for a brand like the Hyatt, I would expect the dishes to be a bit more authentic.

This morning at Breakfast, the lady who bought the napkins and cutlery just dumped everything in front of me instead of setting the table.

General resort cleaning doesn’t seem to be consistent, at least around the area we’re staying at. We have seen paper cups and bit of rubbish along the path for the secondary swimming pool. Whilst it’s disappointing that hotel guests just seem to dump rubbish around the resort. This should be picked up by the cleaning team.

While I’ve been writing this, I have questioned if I’m being too harsh, but I genuinely feel like these are the types of issues I’d expect from a lower end all Inclusive. For the price we’ve paid as well as for the brand of hotel, I would expect better.

We stayed for a week 28th July - 4th August. We had a great family holiday and we would recommend the hotel to others.

Great location and the overall feel of the hotel is lovely. We felt the occupancy of the hotel was just right, never too busy in any area and we also got a lounger. If this is a deliberate choice by the Hyatt it’s a great move as a few other families who came when it was under Dreams commented on how “manic” it was previously. All of the pool areas were great and well maintained. Our little one loved the slides but equally as we had club access we ended each day in the infinity pool enjoying a drink at the swim up bar.

From start to finish staff could not be more helpful and that really made a difference.

Breakfast was amazing huge variety and choice. Dinner was good although a little repetitive after a few nights and our son is dairy free and options were very limited for him which is a shame as a common allergy and considering how popular veganism is. Not a single milk free pudding any night. No vegan cheese etc. We had access to the club lounge which was useful for drinks and snacks but the sandwiches here left a lot to be desired too which was a slightly let down.

We enjoyed the spa and again found treatments and staff to be excellent.
We also thought the kids entertainment was a real highlight with lots of fun things in the evening run by friendly staff.

Top tip - download the app so you don’t miss out on activities in the day, we did archery, rifle shooting, water polo, mojito making and sip and paint. All free and we enjoyed them all.

Overall we really enjoyed our holiday and would love to come again we would just hope it wouldn’t be too busy and that the evening food was slightly improved and had more dairy free options.

When we initially came to the hotel we were greeted very nicely by the staff, and we were excited to explore the hotel and amenities on offer. This inital experience was utterly tarnished by the subsequent treatment of the staff towards us and other guests. We've had staff openly tutting at us, shrugging, and being utterly unwilling to provide the enjoyable experience you would expect at a 5* hotel. They ignored women in our party when they sat alone/with just their younger children, often leading to a completely unattended drink service during lunch and dinners at the buffet restaurant.

We do have to shout out the spa and cleaning staff, as we never had a bad experience with them, and they were incredibly helpful.

However, when 50% of the staff are openly rude, it makes the experience of dealing with staff a lot more arduous. When we were understandably frustrated with slow service, there was often no offer of explanation or help.

The amenities such as the pool are nice, but at the kids pool you'll either have a lifeguard who whistles at every infraction or someone falling asleep and having a snooze for their shift.

Rules are inconsistent from different staff as well. Some days you'll be served only at your table, others you have to go up to the bar. And there's nothing to explain this, and we're often waiting for drinks before at least one helpful staff member comes over to inform us of what choice the bar staff made that night.

Staff are utterly rude, unwilling to help and openly misogynistic. You're better off staying off at another location in Lanzarote.