Blue Sea Costa Bastian

If you’re considering Blue Sea Bastian in Costa Teguise, I’d suggest saving yourself the money, the sunburn, and potentially much more.

Let’s start with the positives. The room was clean, modern, and exactly what we’d hoped for.

That’s the end of the positive section.

The hotel appears to have embraced a bold new hospitality concept: “How little can we do before people complain?”

The sunbeds are uncomfortably the most uncomfortable I’ve ever experienced. I’m fairly certain medieval torture devices offered more lumbar support. There isn’t an inch of shade anywhere around the pool, thanks to the hotel’s no-umbrella policy. The result? Guests, including young children, roasting from morning until evening. If your holiday ambition is to resemble a lobster by lunchtime, you’ll be delighted.

The all-inclusive food deserves a special mention, although perhaps not the kind the chefs were hoping for. Breakfast was tolerable. Dinner was genuinely some of the worst food I’ve ever had at an all-inclusive hotel, and I travel frequently. Every evening became a game of “Can I find anything edible?” the answer, always....no.

Housekeeping also seemed to believe two adults require precisely one sachet of decaffeinated coffee per day. A generous touch.

Need a drink? Excellent. Simply join the daily pilgrimage to the pool bar, where one lone member of staff attempts to serve the entire hotel. Twenty-minute queues in full sun became the norm. By the time you reached the front, you’d need another drink.

Unfortunately, the worst part of this review isn’t funny.

On our second day, while relaxing by the pool, I noticed an elderly gentleman in the water holding his head and clearly struggling. I instinctively looked towards the lifeguards, expecting them to be responding.

Instead, they were exactly where they’d been all day: sitting behind a structure with little or no view of the pool, talking and using their phones.

Seconds later, the gentleman disappeared beneath the water.

My friend and I jumped into the pool and pulled him into the shallow end, where it quickly became apparent he was having a seizure. Other guests came to help. Others simply watched. The lifeguards remained completely unaware until my friend had to whistle loudly to get their attention.

When they finally arrived, they were unable to communicate with either me or the gentleman’s wife in English. They did not take over the situation and stood by while I continued administering first aid throughout the seizure. The manager arrived and immediately tried to arrange an ambulance despite the man’s wife repeatedly explaining that he suffered seizures and that this was not required.

When he eventually recovered enough to be moved, we asked for a chair because he was clearly in no condition to lie on the rigid sunbeds which a fit and abled bodies person would struggle to maneuver on. The answer was simply, “No chair.” Thankfully, another guest ignored this, fetched one from the restaurant, and brought it over.

The gentleman later told us that, in his opinion, had we not intervened when we did, he could have drowned.

What disturbed me almost as much as the incident itself was what followed. Over the next three days, I deliberately watched the lifeguards. Nothing changed. They continued spending most of their time in the same shaded position with limited visibility of the pool, on our second to last day a young girl collapsed next to the pool, possibly due to the heat? but again the lifeguards were not first to respond and got called over by other guests.

On our final day, the gentleman, my friend and I asked to speak to the manager. Not because we wanted compensation, but because we genuinely believed the hotel needed to know about a serious safety concern.

Initially, guest relations didn’t even want to get the manager.

When the manager eventually arrived, she was defensive from the first sentence. Every concern was met with excuses or denial. She refused to acknowledge that the lifeguards hadn’t been properly monitoring the pool or that guests had effectively managed the emergency before they became involved. During this conversation, the guest relations representative actually laughed when my friend remarked that the gentleman could have drowned. I’ve rarely witnessed such an astonishing lack of professionalism.

Only after I pointed out that there had recently been a fatal hotel pool drowning elsewhere in Lanzarote did the manager reluctantly offer the gentleman an apology, but you could see this pained her and did not come across genuinely in any respect.

Hotels don’t have to be perfect. Food can be average. Bars can be busy. Coffee sachets can be forgotten.

What they cannot afford to get wrong is guest safety!!!

This holiday left me with the overwhelming feeling that this hotel simply doesn’t listen until something goes seriously wrong, which unfortunately is going to happen sooner rather than later unless action is taken immediately.

Lanzarote is a beautiful island and absolutely worth visiting.

Blue Sea Bastian isn’t.

If you’re travelling with children, elderly relatives, or simply expect an all-inclusive holiday to include edible food, decent service and confidence that safety is put first, I would strongly recommend booking somewhere else.

The saddest part is that this hotel could actually be very good. The rooms show there's potential. Replace the current management and guest relations team with people who genuinely care about guest safety, service and accountability, enough to make simple changes and be present to ensure that staff are doing their jobs and you'd have a hotel worth recommending. Until then, I'd advise people to spend their money elsewhere.

Super clean throughout, staff are lovely. The room was really big with added bonus of a fridge with tea & coffee kettle & coffee machine. Can’t find anything negative about this hotel. We’ll definitely be returning