VIK Hotel San Antonio

Safety Concerns – VIK Hotel San Antonio, Puerto del Carmen

⭐☆☆☆☆

During our stay at VIK Hotel San Antonio, a member of our family was the victim of a reported robbery within the hotel premises during the early hours of the morning. This was an extremely distressing incident and raised serious concerns for us regarding guest safety and security.

We observed that multiple access points appeared to remain open during the night and did not feel reassured that sufficient measures were in place to prevent unauthorised access to the hotel. We reported the incident and our concerns to the relevant authorities and believe the hotel should review its security arrangements as a matter of priority.

While we cannot comment on the experiences of other guests, this incident significantly affected our sense of safety and enjoyment during the holiday. We felt that greater visibility of security measures and a clearer response to guest concerns would have provided additional reassurance.

We were also concerned about safety around the pool area, as we did not observe a lifeguard on duty during our stay. Families travelling with children may wish to make their own enquiries regarding pool supervision arrangements before booking. In our experience, responsibility for safety around the pool appeared to rest largely with parents and accompanying adults.

In addition, we found the food to be repetitive and often not as warm as expected. Service levels were inconsistent, and some concerns raised during our stay did not appear to be addressed to our satisfaction.

Overall, the incident involving our family member had a significant impact on our holiday and our confidence in the hotel’s safety arrangements. Although others may have different experiences, we left with serious concerns regarding security and guest welfare. Based on our experience, we would not return and would encourage prospective guests to make their own enquiries regarding the hotel’s security and safety arrangements before booking.

We had a lovely stay at the VIK Hotel. Yes, it's a little dated, but it was absolutely spotless and very well maintained. We had a great holiday and will definitely be booking again next year.

The only negative for us was the food. The lunch and dinner choices weren't the best, and we felt there could have been more variety. Unfortunately, both my husband and I had upset stomachs for two days during our stay. We can't say for certain what caused it, but we suspect it may have been the eggs at breakfast, so we'll probably avoid them next time.

Overall, though, we really enjoyed our stay, and the cleanliness, atmosphere, and overall experience far outweighed the negatives. We're already looking forward to coming back next year.

General view. I am just back from a week long stay at this hotel during the beginning of July with my family of four. We booked two rooms to house us, on a half board basis.

The hotel is located at the eastern end of the Puerto Del Carmen strip and a walk to the far western end, passing shops, bars and restaurants will take around 45mins at a leisurely pace, or you can get there for a Eur5 taxi.

There is a Spar shop out left of the hotel, 5 mins walk, and another shop out right of the hotel, 3 mins walk. These are great to use for buying bottled water (tap water not really consumed in Lanzarote) and cheap booze and food, if you need.

The hotel appears to be favoured by a more mature clientele (I am in late 40s and the clientele were significantly more mature than me!), which means the hotel may not be the best place for people seeking a bit of vibrancy and entertainment. It is peaceful and there were no noise issues with loud music, or arrogant guests at all throughout the stay. It was perhaps a bit too quiet for my tastes. As we were staying here and using it a a base while we undertook some diving training, we spent most of our time away out of the hotel, so the sedate pace of life at the hotel wasn't too much of an issue, on this occasion.

Staff The standout positive for us was the friendliness of staff. This includes the reception staff that were welcoming and hospitable and the restaurant staff who always made us welcome. Even the housekeeping team were nice! Regrettably, I can't speak much Spanish, but the staff were all able to converse in English and didn't seem resentful of the fact!

Pools They have two pools, which are on the smaller side compared to some other hotels I've been to. The larger of the pool is the lower level one and it did feel a bit cramped at times, but this isn't a major issue.

The pool has signage around it prohibiting the use of floaties, such as airbeds, and other blow-up toys, including balls. This was largely ignored by holiday makers and never really enforced by the hotel staff. Inflatables were not used overly much though. The pool could be even more cramped if this were the case. I did use an airbed tethered to the side of the pool to sunbathe on and never got any stick from the hotel or any guests. I also played some ball games with the kids, being mindful of other users in the pool, and again received no criticism for it.

Loungers were easy enough to secure with most people putting towels down on loungers round about breakfast time. You can rent pool towels from the hotel at Eur10 per towel. These can be exchanged at reception when required, easily.

Pools are stated as saltwater pools on the hotels website, but the salinity of them is very mild as to be totally unnoticeable; it doesn't burn your eyes if you get water in them or leave you spluttering as you might if this was the same salinity as sea water. Don't be put off by this.

There is a near-the-pool (not poolside) bar serving snacks and drinks. I got some beers and wines from here in the first couple of days. They serve them in a small sized paper cup, I assume for pool safety, but the portion size of these is unsatisfactory and I didn't bother with this place after the first couple of days. As a reminder, there are two very close by shops also selling snacks and drinks at much reduced cost.

Gym The hotel has a sorry excuse for a "gym", accessed from the the lower level near the main pool. I like keeping fit and use the gym at home 5/6 times a week. Whilst I don't go on holiday and expect to continue an aggressive gym programme, it would be good to be able to do some form of training.

The gym here has the provision for air-conditioning but this was not turned on, or just broken. Exercising at any times other then early morning, or late evening would be a bit of an uncomfortable sweat fest.

The gym has a random, mismatched set of dumbbells with the highest weight looking to be about 25kg. It's not a full range up to this number. There were probably only about 8 pairs of dumbbells leading up to this size and a few lone dumbbells that were missing the other one to the pair.

There is a clapped out multi-gym but really needs to be replaced. The existing one is seized up, not put together right and not worth using.

There is a running machine and a rower. I didn't use either (too hot), but both looked like they'd seen better days.

Overall the gym is a disappointment. I used it once and didn't bother after that. It would be an easy win for the hotel to do the gym up and spend the £5k - £10k needed to turn this into a useable facility. New full dumbbells set, a new (or serviced) multigym, x2 new weights benches and spend any loose change on the cardio equipment would be all that is needed alongside functional air conditioning.

Restaurant We were half board and routinely used the restaurant for breakfast and evening meals. You have the option to swap dinner for lunch, if you advise reception the day prior. Meals are buffet style. I score the food at 7/10. It's good, plenty of choice (for those without dietary concerns) but nothing grandiose or memorable about it as far as buffets go.

One of our family is gluten intolerant. There is a small selection of gluten free items, but this could be improved with more choice, e.g. gluten free bread. Otherwise it was a case of the family member finding things to eat that were naturally free of gluten, they managed though.

One observation is that for evening meal (possibly lunch as well, although we never used the lunch service) no drinks are freely available, such as water, tea, coffee etc. Everything has to be purchased from the drinks menu, adding an accumulating charge to your bill daily. For our family of four having a soft drink, water, an occasional beer or sangria jug this cost ranged from 10-20 euros each day. Not too major, but just be aware of this necessary extra cost.

Rooms My room was clean and had no issues with it. The other room that our family were using was observed to have some cockroaches in the bathroom near the loo, which upset one of my family members a bit.

The rooms have a small fridge in them, so you stash any water or booze here when you buy it from the nearby shops.

Rooms are fitted with air-con which was fine although takes a while to bring the room down to temperature.

Entertainment During the week days there are a couple of sessions of the standard pool aerobics. Other than that, I didn't see any other activities on the go during the day.

There is a pool table near the bar, but like the gym equipment, this has seen better days. It stopped working after about our 3rd day, but I think this is because it had been stuffed with incorrect coins (it takes a 1euro coin for a game) .

Evening entertainment in the hotel consisted of either a singing or dancing act in the hotel cocktail bar. This wasn't really to our tastes and I felt this more geared to the older guests. It did seem to be well attended when we passed by but didn't seem to have much atmosphere. We sought our entertainment outside the hotel, in the evenings.