***INTRODUCTION - WHY THE SOL LANZAROTE???***

In October this year, me and Marymum (that's what I call her since her name's Mary and she's my mum) went to Lanzarote for what I felt for me was a well-deserved week in the sun after a very hectic year. The two years previous I had been on two holidays a year and this year I only got one so I was REALLY looking forward to it, as you might imagine!

I pretty much left it up to Marymum to book something as it was her who was paying - the only stipulations I gave was that it had to be the Canaries or Cyprus. After all, if I was only getting one holiday (she's had about five this year already, honestly!!!) I wanted guaranteed sunshine, and Benidorm, which was her choice, just wasn't necessarily going to cut it, whereas I knew the others were far more likely to deliver in mid October. So she went to the travel agents and finally chose the Sol Lanzarote in Matagorda. As the last three holidays I have been on have covered the other main Canary Islands (Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura) and we had made a daytrip over to Lanzarote and liked it last year (the trip left from Fuerteventura, not from Scotland!), this was ideal for me!

My mum told me that the Sol Lanzarote hotel was right next to the beach, and my dad and brother, who went to Lanzarote the month before us (and had worse weather, funnily enough) also stayed in Matagorda and confirmed we were indeed right next to the beach. This was great news as far as I'm concerned, as I generally prefer lying by the sea to lying by the pool (which turned out to be a good thing, as I'll explain later). I was extremely excited about going and when we finally arrived at Arrecife airport after a two and a half hour flight delay, I couldn't wait to get to my hotel, and I was praying our balcony would have the sun on it...

***LOCATION***

First off, the Sol Lanzarote is located in Matagorda, which is halfway between Puerto del Carmen and Arrecife (between 3-5 km in each direction). This isn't the handiest place to be if you want to be the hustle and bustle, as whatever direction you're going in the buses are always packed and there's not really a lot around Matagorda itself apart from the beach and various apartments/hotels (and a small selection of tourist shops and supermarkets) but if you're looking for a fairly relaxed atmosphere then this could be the place you want to be. In addition, if you are a wannabe plane-spotter, which Marymum turned out to be (it was the Fred Olsen ferry to Lanzarote she was obsessed with when we stayed in Fuerteventura, here it was the planes!!!), you are practically right next to the runway within a short fifteen minute walk. And the planes are remarkably quiet!!! Go figure.

***THE AMENITIES***

The hotel's amenities include a bar/lounge (with nightly entertainment), a buffet restaurant, an a la carte restaurant and a pizzeria, three swimming pools, a 24 hour reception desk , a tennis court and table tennis. Sounds pretty good, right?

Just a couple of TEENSY hitches...

First up - one of the pools was out of commission the entire time we were there. Not that it mattered anyway as my mum can't stand being in swimming pools where she can't stand on the bottom with her head above water. And you could only do this in the children's pool apparently. So if you are anything like Marymum, the pools aren't the best. However, there seemed to be plenty of free loungers around - although perhaps this is because it seems a little weird sitting around a pool which has no water in it!

Secondly, the bar/lounge where the nightly entertainment was held just didn't have a big enough capacity for the amount of people there. When you consider that we were there in mid October, which isn't exactly high season, and everytime we walked past the bar it was packed to the point that people were standing OUTSIDE watching the entertainment, I hate to think what it would be like in July or August! On the upside though, they did seem to make an effort with the entertainment providing Pontins/Butlins type party dances for the children earlier on and then having more adult-oriented entertainment like Beatles and Abba tribute nights later on. It was all I could do to keep Marymum away from it!

Then there was the food. I don't consider myself a particularly fussy person but these buffet things never seem to suit me. It's kinda like the "one size fits all...badly" theory to me - I always feel that in trying to please everyone, they end up pleasing no one! Blobs of meat in unidentifable sauce and pizza topped with ingredients I wouldn't touch in a million years just don't do it for me. Neither did the fact they kept mis-labelling what can only be described as Banana flavoured Angel Delight as "creamy custard" - given bananas and banana flavoured things make me feel sick, it was not ideal for me to take a big gulp of "custard" only to realise it was banana! Don't get me wrong, there was the odd nice thing you could have - for example, you could get a chef to cook you some pasta right in front of you and then add a sauce of your choice to it. But who wants to have that EVERY night? The breakfasts were okay though, I definitely preferred the choice available then to the choice available in the evening.

The hotel had a layout that I have not experienced previously - basically you had to go in via the reception, then back outside, and effectively climb up a slope to the relevant lift up to your room. To be honest, this was a bit of a nightmare when we first arrived. We were given a map and told to go to elevator four. And then we got totally lost. We were trailing our suitcases up the hill, still dressed in our winter clothes in 30 degree heat, dripping with sweat, without a clue where we were going. I can't imagine this would be ideal for people with limited mobility. But we quickly got used to it, and started to enjoy the exercise!

***THE HOTEL ROOM***

To be honest, my positive opinion of the Sol Lanzarote comes mainly from the fact I really liked the hotel room. And this was mainly due to the fact that the bathroom was massive and - most importantly - we had the largest balcony I have ever seen in a hotel room! Seriously! I have quite a large bedroom in my flat and I would say this balcony was the same size as it. And it was partly under cover and partly exposed which meant it got the sun on it all afternoon, but also had a bit of shade for Marymum to sit in (she doesn't really like being exposed to too much sun).

We HAD asked for a sea-view which we didn't really get - it was fairly limited and our main view was of a bit of wasteland and a McDonalds. If I can, I will try and upload a couple of pics of this to show how paltry the view actually was.

But it definitely seemed to just be luck that we got this amazing balcony. We scoped out the hotel and most people only had balconies that were average sized. Some people's didn't even seem to get any sunshine as they faced INTO the middle of the hotel - this obviously meant they wouldn't get any privacy either! We, on the other hand, were pretty much secluded from other hotel guests, which was great. I hate the idea of someone from a neighbouring hotel room popping their head over the balcony to say hello when you're lying there in your bikini!

The room also had a TV with a variety of channels in different languages (including German MTV, which was fun to watch!), a safe which you DIDN'T have to hire, plenty of storage space, and a hairdryer in the bathroom. The cleaners came every day, although they always came at different times, which can be a bit of a pain, but they were perfectly willing to clean up around you while you lay on the balcony and were always very friendly.

We did have a couple of problems with our room when we first arrived as the safe has been shut over by the previous occupees which meant we couldn't open it; and we had a problem with our balcony light. Both of these problems were dealt with, but my mum did have to ask twice for the safe to be opened for us before it was actually done.

***SHOULD YOU GO?***

I think the Sol Lanzarote is probably a good hotel to go to if you are a family with young children and are just planning to lie by the pool or on the beach all day and not really go anywhere else. There is a Flintstone theme to it and a children's club during the day called the BamBam Club (BamBam went on the run for a while, but that's another story) so it is quite a family oriented place. If you are older and looking for some nightlife, you may be better going for somewhere closer to the heart of Puerto Del Carmen as you probably won't enjoy having to travel so far to get into town and back.

Would I myself stay there again? Only if I could guarantee I could get that same room we had. If I went back and got a normal sized balcony, I think I would have to turn around and go back home then and there!

***For rates and availability, check out the following link: http://www.solmelia.com/solNew/hoteles/jsp/C_Hotel_Description.jsp?codigoHo tel=3517***