Sands Beach Resort

Dated hotel, needs renovation, very far from 4 stars they declare

I read the reviews on this place being hit and miss and thought we’d give it a try as everyone has their own experiences, but I really wish we had avoided! It has to be one of the worst places we’ve stayed and it certainly isn’t 3 star! We arrived late at night, hungry, tired and thirsty, to find the supermarket in the resort closed (it was meant to be open.) It was a case of dump cases in our room and try and find something to eat and drink local. We were told to walk down a long dark car park road and find our beachfront room, that dark we had to use our phone torch. The room was as expected from the pictures online, dated. When we woke the next morning, we were greeted with a few ants in our room, I always bring insect wipes anyway so did a quick wash of the floor where they were and wiped along the doors to the balcony. We headed out to find there were no sunbeds around any of the pools, with 2 pools actually closed off. We hadn’t been informed that prior to us arriving, the hotel had actually been taken over due to bankruptcy and the new owners has removed the tired sunbeds from around the pools. After asking staff at reception we were advised to carry our 1 sun lounger from our upstairs beachfront terrace, down our stairs and up the stairs if we wanted to be around the pool, (health and safety issue.) After asking every day, reporting this issue to the rep, the only time new sunbeds arrived was on our last full day (day 6). However we could have used the lido over the mai tai bridge and paid €6pp where funnily enough there were sunbeds available around a freezing pool, where we couldn’t eat or drink around. Those staying plaza (poolside rooms) had to drag their sunbeds from their terraces to the poolside, which is ridiculous! The one sunbed that was available, was disgustingly. We headed to the beachfront the kids had a paddle and we relaxed on some sunbeds there, to then find the water is actually stagnant as there is no tide to take the water in and out. So that made the beachfront water inaccessible when it’s water just sitting there breeding bacteria. We don’t come on holiday to sit on a floor around the pools with ants. The ant problem in our room continued for days and got to the point where if we were sat around the table, we’d have ants crawling up our legs. The hotel certainly weren’t fast to try and fix the problem, and it only seemed to partially be sorted when I spoke to our rep. They offered me a room change, which wasn’t suitable as a tall teen couldn’t fit on the small couch pull out bed. Despite maintenance and cleaners cleaning the room, the ant problem continued throughout our stay. The rooms were never cleaned properly as I’d purposely left the insect wipes along parts of the balcony door that 4 days later were still there. On day 6 when we could finally relax because they’d put a few new sunbeds around a couple of the pools, we went into one to find scum in what looks like it maybe once was a hot tub part of th

We stayed in an upstairs apartment on the beach front. It was a really good size with a separate bedroom, a well equipped kitchen and a good shower room with a separate double sink area. The apartment was very clean when we arrived. There were a few downsides. The apartment was only partially cleaned once as the cleaners kept arriving around 6pm when we were having showers and getting ready to go out. Also the exterior lighting wasn’t very efficient. However the good greatly outweighed the bad. Had a lovely holiday.

Pleasantly surprised with our apartment much bigger and large terrace, clean and would stay again, travelled with a party we booked with Jet 2, those who booked with love holidays apartments much smaller and required updating and there sun beds in a dismal state, glad we booked with jet 2