Finca Marisa

I am not sure what to say about Finca Marisa, as we had such a mixed experience. Some aspects were excellent, others were awful. For the price we paid and from the slick glam website, we expected luxury. We did not get it. We were very disappointed and felt overcharged compared to the cheaper place we had stayed in a few days earlier, which was much better. If we hadn’t paid in advance, we would have left Finca Marisa the same day we arrived. Positives - The food at breakfast was varied and simply fantastic - The double bed was huge and very comfortable - Some outside areas looked beautiful - tasteful decor - the reception lady who also cooked and served breakfast and dealt with the workmen was very sweet, apologetic, and clearly overworked. I suspect the owner delegates everything to this lady and it’s simply too much for one person. Negatives - The bathroom stank of sewage on arrival and this continued throughout our stay. Yuk. I assume a drains issue. - We booked for 3 people but they had forgotten to prepare the single bed. At checkin (2pm) they said they would come back with the bedding. We did not get this until after 9pm despite asking many times. That meant my child couldn’t go to bed until late. Reception was unattended in the afternoon and the out of hours numbers were no help. The reception whatsapp kept saying ‘in ten minutes’ or ‘in an hour, I’m in Arrecife.’ But it was hours more. Lanzarote is a tiny island. There is nowhere you can’t get to in an hour, so why did it take 7 hrs for us to get our full set of sheets? Is there really no full time caretaker on site, in a venue with this many rooms, at this price point? I am glad we did not have a real emergency there. - there were noisy building works both on site and off. We often felt that we were ‘in the way’ of the renovation staff and I didn’t like having workmen around me as I sat by the pool. There are also noisy works in other buildings nearby, so even when the Finca Marisa works finish, it seems unlikely to be a quiet area. - local restaurants were much lower standard than those we found in Rubicon Marina and Puerto Calero. We didn’t like the local area at all. Better volcano walks are in Tinajo and Timanfaya; better hotel and restaurant service is anywhere else. - not much to do locally. If you go to Famara read the reviews on here first. - Virtually no English spoken, despite the website claims that the owner is multilingual. I would not have booked if I knew this was a “by the Spanish for the Spanish” location. - toilet bin pedal is broken and urgently needs replacing: the used toilet tissue has to go in it and I don’t appreciate hand-opening such a bin and having my hands this close to other people’s dirty toilet tissue. You could buy a new toilet bin for 1% yes 1% of what you charged me… - kitchen tiny with only two hobs. They left us olive oil but only about 5mm of it. - there was sand in the single bed. Even after they had put fresh sheets on it. Very s

From what I understood, the estate was in a decrepit state when the current manager took over and she has been doing her best to renovate it. The result is startlingly impractical but pretty. To access the largest room (which is in a separate building) you need to unlock a narrow door, wiggle your luggage or bikes past a large ornamental lava rock, walk along a narrow slippery stretch between a tiny but deep pool and a wall, which is again blocked by a lava boulder… before reaching a second door that needs unlocking too. I mention the locks because you get four unmarked keys and unlocking requires guesswork. The rooms were clean. The kitchen and bathroom were smelly, but we simply kept the doors closed. More disturbing was the smell of the towels. It was really disturbing. As if the washed laundry of that place wasn’t allowed to dry properly. There are many more things that simply aren’t thought trough and give the place an unfinished DIY home works atmosphere : three different haphazard wifi networks; nowhere to put you shampoo and soap in the shower, no real spot for your clothing, sliding doors that don’t slide and never lock, a minor flood when you take a shower etc. What we did enjoy however was the breakfast (tasty ingredients !), the very friendly staff, and the view. The location is beautiful - calm (apart from barking dogs), sunny with a pretty view. Overall, I enjoyed my stay but the room rates are too high for a place that is in need of professional improvement.

Beautiful room, very nice areas to hang around during the day and night (whirlpools), fantastic breakfast, incredible landscapes all around & flexible and very nice staff. We had a wonderful stay at Finca Marisa with our young son. We will gladly come back!