This post is very late – apologies! A few months ago – last November – I went on a winter sun holiday to Lanzarote with David. This man is the love of my life, and it was a great experience to go on our first holiday abroad together. We spent a week in Costa Teguise, and I wanted to put a post together on our trip, in case you might be planning a trip to the area.

We weren’t set on the Canary Islands as our destination – we just knew we wanted to go to the place with the most guaranteed sun at this time of year. It was the travel agent who said Lanzarote would be our best choice. We chose Costa Teguise as we liked the look of the hotel. What I wish the travel agent had told us was that Costa Teguise is notoriously very windy, so it brings down the temperature a bit and made it too windy to lie on the beach, for example.

We did have a great hotel pool however, and our room balcony was on the ground floor right at the edge of the pool, so we had our own private poolside sunbathing space – no reserving deckchairs with towels for us! We also had such a nice, quiet elderly couple staying in the room next door to us, who didn’t really use their balcony, so we felt that we really had our own, exclusive space.The hotel we stayed in was the 4-star Be Live Lanzarote Beach. Overall, it was great, although there were some downsides to this resort. It was very clean, bright and modern, which was great. We were there on an all-inclusive basis, so we could basically eat and drink what we wanted, when we wanted. The Be Live Lanzarote Beach resort had a lot of food and drink available all day, and whilst it was good food that catered to everyone, it was quite repetitive – after a few days we were sick of the buffets and needed something different. As part of the all-inclusive package, you can go to two themed food nights per week, so we chose the Mexican night and the Italian night. What I found with these was that the portions were small and the choice was very limited – you were actually getting a lot less for your money than you were if you just ate at the buffet.We went out for one lunch and one dinner when we were there – we would have done it more often, but the point of this holiday was just to chill out as much as possible while moving as little as possible and eating/drinking as much as possible. There are so many options to dine out in Costa Teguise, with a full range of cuisines. On our last night, we went to Namastea, an Indian restaurant. The service here was great, and the food was really yummy. My only complaint was that it wasn’t chicken breast in my chicken curry (but thigh etc) and for the price (over 13 Euros), I would have expected it to be. The starter portions were also a little small compared to Indian restaurants in the UK.

We also went out for crepes, and a an afternoon drinking session in an Irish pub – The Shamrock. One thing I will warn you if you are going all-inclusive is that the cocktails in the hotel are a lot less potent than ones outside. So don’t make the mistake I did of thinking I could drink the same number, and then end up catatonic.The beach at Costa Teguise is large and very clean – it was just too windy in November to be able to lie there on a towel and enjoy the sun. It’s perfect for night-time strolls along the sea edge however. The shopping in Costa Teguise is mainly cheap souvenir shops or stores selling knock-off Michael Kors bags; but there are a few duty-free high-end stores if you are looking to spend some holiday money.Costa Teguise was a really safe, clean and friendly place, and the Be Live hotel was the same. It suited our needs really well as we didn’t want to do much at all. The staff are really friendly at the hotel, and if you did want a more active holiday, the team at Be Live offer daily dance, archery and yoga sessions, for example.

We really enjoyed our holiday, and I hope this post will be helpful to you if you are considering Lanzarote as a holiday destination. For other Europe destinations, I’ve been enjoying this post from the Wanderlust Crew  blog.

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