Barcelo Fuerteventura Royal Level – Adults Only

We spent 4 nights at the Barceló Fuerteventura Royal Level – Adults Only - to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Our room was clean, but maintenance issues detracted from our comfort. The sofa needed a deep cleaning, and the main balcony railing was loose and felt unsafe, which was particularly concerning. The bedroom balcony, on the other hand, had no furniture at all—just an empty space, which seemed like a missed opportunity for enjoying the outdoors. The bathroom was spacious, with a good-sized shower, but the shower door lacked a bottom track. This caused the glass door to swing inwards and felt unstable. It also left a gap at the floor level, resulting in water soaking the bathroom floor every time we used it. Upon arrival, the bed was made up as two singles instead of the king we had expected. While housekeeping quickly addressed this when we informed reception, the noise from our room location remained a problem. Being on the first floor at the back of the resort, we were exposed to constant road noise and live music from a nightclub across the street, which blared until 1 a.m. nightly. The live entertainment from the pool bar was also audible from our balcony. A poorly fitted door with large gaps only amplified these issues. When we raised our concerns with reception, they said the resort was fully booked and no alternative rooms were available. We mentioned several times during check-in and our discussions with reception that this was our 25th wedding anniversary—a milestone trip for us. No one even acknowledged it, let alone made any effort to make our stay special. For context, when we celebrated our 15th anniversary at a different hotel, they surprised us with a small gesture of a bottle of Prosecco and chocolate-covered strawberries. We didn’t expect anything extravagant, but even a simple “Happy Anniversary” would have gone a long way. The resort itself was clean, and the facilities were well-maintained. However, the pool area suffered from the common issue of guests “reserving” loungers with towels as early as 7 a.m., only to leave them empty for hours. A pool lounger assignment system would help resolve this frustrating situation. The food was a big disappointment. We were shocked by the low quality and poor presentation at both the adults-only buffet and the main resort buffet. Salad Bar: Mostly prepackaged or tinned items like bagged salad mix, tinned mushrooms, and sweetcorn. Salad dressings were unlabelled, making it unclear what was being offered. Charcuterie: While visually appealing, nothing was labelled, and not every platter had tongs or forks, leading to guests handling food with their hands. Hot Food: This was the most disappointing. The selection felt more like a children’s menu, with frozen fried items such as chips, mozzarella sticks, spring rolls, and croquettes. One day at lunch, we saw what appeared to be a pulled pork pizza. However, upon tasting it, we realised it was not pork at all—it was tinned tuna paired with onion! Additionally, the lack of labelling on hot food items made it difficult to know what was being served, and the labels that were present were unhelpful (e.g., “pork in sauce” or “surprise chicken”). Even worse, there was a persistent lack of serving utensils, which led to significant cross-contamination throughout the buffets. We also looked into the resort’s à la carte restaurants, where all-inclusive guests received a 20% discount. However, reviews on Google and TripAdvisor suggested these options were equally underwhelming, and we didn’t want to risk further disappointment, especially on our anniversary. In the end, we chose to dine out locally for two of our four dinners, which was a far better experience. While the resort had potential, the experience was marred by maintenance issues, poor food quality, and a lack of attention to detail. We left feeling let down, and unfortunately, we cannot recommend this resort to others. It is certainly not deserving of its advertised 4-star rating.

Let's start with the plus points because there are certainly some. The resort looks beautiful. When you arrive you immediately have the holiday feeling. Palm trees etc. Reception is exceptionally friendly. Everything was neatly explained. If you want you can be driven to your room with a buggy, we walked so we could view the resort. The swimming pool is beautiful, the beds are wonderful. The restaurant has the best food we have ever had at Barcelo. Really high quality. Every evening a different theme but always something you like. The room or actually villa is spacious, lovely beds, nice sitting area, 2 wardrobes so enough space for all your clothes. The villa is exceptionally clean and the cleaning is very good. So you would think a perfect stay. But then the biggest minus. Despite the fact that they advertise that they keep a strict eye on reserving pool beds, there is no sign of this. At 7am in the morning people are already running to the pool to claim beds. Because of this there are no more beds available after 9am. the pool opens at 10am by the way. and are those people going to lie down at 10am, no way. we have seen beds occupied for the entire day several times without having seen anyone on them. even when we indicated to the staff that some beds were reserved but no one was lying down, no action was taken. this means that you are actually forced to participate if you want a day at the pool. this was not what we were hoping for because of their own rules, and this negatively affected a very large part of the holiday.