CLC World – Club La Costa Resorts

This is the second time we have stayed at CLC World Castillo Del Rey and the 4th time at this resort.

Generally, we don’t have any complaints but very disappointed on this occasion as the holiday was spoilt by the fact that the pool was not heated due to being knocked out in the storm the previous week.

Despite promises, it was never fixed. We booked 4 apartments in total as we were out there celebrating someones 50th. Unfortunately, the very small children were not able to enjoy the pool as it was so cold which really spoilt it for one family.

Perhaps we should have complained louder and demanded we be moved to Santa Cruz which appeared to be virtually empty and had a lovely warm pool.

Have to say that these apartments are starting to look a little worn one bathroom, in particular, was looking very grubby.

We will be going back to this resort next year but not Castillo Del Rey as generally the resort is fab. I am hoping a member of the management team will read this and respond and refund some points as a way of compensation. As members (platinum) for some 20 years I feel we deserve this.

On a positive note, I must thank staff member Lorraine who was helpful as ever particularly with the altercation with the dog on the motorway. Some staff at reception, however, need to work on their customer services skills though. The restaurant at reception is fab and well worth a visit

Trepidation!

After reading the many posts about the Benal Beach it was with trepidation that we decided to proceed with our booking which had been made via Booking.com for a 2 week stay at Club La Costa, Benal Beach. Surely it could not be that bad considering its location……how wrong we were!

On arrival first impressions were old, tired and dirty, masses of flaking concrete and black metal. “Looks… and feels like a hospital” by a previous poster sort of sums it up!…..he was lucky he only spent the 1 night there!

We were allocated an apartment in Block 3. This was a 1 bedroom apartment and came complete with safe, iron, ironing board, clothes drier, extra pillows and towels, hairdryer, microwave, toaster, 2 ring hob, television and air-con/heat. The furnishings were in good repair although a little uncomfortable. There were only 2 of us and quite suitable for our needs but certainly not for a larger party.

We saw the maid once during our 2 week stay – all rubbish etc., we had to take to the bins ourselves.

It took a while to understand the ‘set up’ of the Benal Beach, yes it is timeshare hell and yes there are permanent residents complete with dogs and where do these dogs relieve themselves, yes on the grassed areas. We departed today, and up until yesterday, the areas below our balcony were full of ‘dog pooh’! Yes we made a verbal and written complaint regarding this and especially the Health Hazard for children. I am an animal lover and you cannot blame the dogs, just the laziness of their owners who cannot be bothered to ‘pick up’! This must be horrendous in the summer heat!

We also made two additional complaints. One in relation to the youths who skateboard along the corridors at night and the smoking of !!!!!!!!! in broad daylight again by youths (not British) while sprawled out on the grass. There does not seem to be any security at night neither is there any way of contacting reception should an emergency arise.

Although just retired, we are no prudes and have seen/experienced life to the full. We have lived in Spain and understand the Spanish way of life, but what we experienced at the Benal Beach just beggars belief!

Would we stay there again – NO WAY, and I recommend that any self respecting person finds alternative accommodation before making a booking there. Also be aware of mis selling

Club la rip off

Having used a number of CLC Holidays resorts over the last couple of years, we decided to take a 5 day break without the kids at Monterey…… all I can say is thank Goodness we didn’t bring the children…..

There are 2 sections to this resort, the older block and the newer ‘club Royale’ block…. when we were shown around this resort during the presentation they clearly neglected to take us to the older more established part of the resort…

Also, our membership is not full membership, we have the trial membership… again.. thank goodness I didn’t commit to lifetime membership if this is how you get treated for investing £20,000….!!!

As Trial members we were not able to get the Club Royale rooms (even though we were not told this in the sales pitch)… incidentally, the Sales Manager who tried to upgrade us this week advised that as a trial member we would only get access to 15% of their available resorts…!!

Anyway, I digress…..

Our room was on the 7th floor in the old block, which entailed taking 3 lifts to get to our room due to the fact the resort is built on a slope… when we got to the room (exhausted after my marathon walk) I was shocked at how small the room was….

Compact is not the word…. the balcony area was bigger than the entire living space… Honestly, this is no exaggeration….

Then there is also the small fact that there is NO AIR CONDITIONING in the rooms in the older block… really useful when it’s 28 degrees…. there were 2 fans, but it recirculates hot air it is next to useless…. The solution from the CLC rep…?? Open the front door and the rear patio door to allow a draft into the room….!!!!

There is only a maid service once a week….. so you’re stuck with used towels and same bed linen for a week… which after sleeping in a Boiling hot room for a week with no air con can tend to get a little ‘sweaty’…..

There are no amenities for children… the quality of food in the Sunrise bar is ok…. and the Sunset bar is overpriced for what you get….

Having stayed at Sunningdale during our ‘Show week’…. and Santa Cruz during our prelude week… we have now seen the real Club La Costa standard…. very poor…

And to top it all… when we raised our concerns… they sent the Sales Manager along, who advised that as trial members we don’t really have anything to bargain with unless we signed up as full members… he then proceeded to launch a sales pitch and tried to get us to accompany him back to his office so he could show us how the figures really work…..

A holiday with this firm is just one long attempt to get you to sign for life…. I will be forwarding my complaints to Watchdog who are compiling a dossier against this firm…

Save your money.. don’t give it to this firm, they have more hidden costs that a cheap airline… and fewer scruples than a double glazing salesman….

Avoid them… and avoid this resort

Dirty, mouldy, old.

Do not come, awful place.

15 years old resort, rooms are old and worn out.

When we moved in, the kitchen was covered with sticky oily dirt, dishes all in stains. Mould in the wardrobe, dust everywhere.

No restaurants closer than 15 minutes walk. 3 restaurants in the hotel do not present variety of dishes. Not tasty, not cheap..

Supermarket though is just 5 min walk from the resort.

Though it is a family resort, kids are not very welcome, ball games are prohibited everywhere except playground

We were here at promo-holiday and this stay completely washed away my intention to become a member of timeshare

We first came on a promotional visit 2 years ago and decided to become members because we travel a lot.

The villa that we got on the promotional visit was great.

A two bed with two bathrooms, dishwasher, washing machine etc.

We thought that was the general standard. After trying for 2 years to get villas at any CLC World Resort during uk school holiday we finally decided to go back to club la Costa. To our surprise, the villa was much smaller, no dishwasher, one bathroom with mould on the windows.

The children still had a good time because there was a pool nearby.

The food at Zachary’s is just about OK and definitely not worth the money that you have to pay.

If I could turn back time I would not have become a member. I really wished I had done my research first.

Stay out of Marina del Sol apartments

Marina Del Sol is one of the three resorts on this site and is a hovel. Both the restaurants, Zachary and El Rancho, associated with Marina Del Sol are flea bitten and sell the usual junk burgers, nuggets and pasta dishes. That said the independent Spanish restaurant next door to the reception is actually really good.

The three pools you are allowed to use if you are staying here are tiny and overcrowded. Three strokes end to end if there is space to do so. You really feel you have arrived in third class hell.

If you are lucky enough to own a ludicrous number of points though you may get to stay in one of the other apartments, and use some nicer pools, but don’t hold your breath. Most members I met hadn’t managed in ten years and were all trying to sell their points.

Our apartment was like a 1960s council flat, pictures of which I will post here.

Let’s look at membership. Your morning presentation is a minimum of six hours for anyone. Be warned. Any sort of Club La Costa membership is a total con. £20k for a basic membership at 19% APR for a 2% fractional ownership. Hang on. Does that value an apartment at £2,000,000? Oh yes, plus £850 a year for maintenance. What?! Yes. £850 a year maintenance for your ONE WEEK holiday. Hmm. Plus whatever the booking fee is.

Forget ever being able to resell your points for anything near what you paid.

Suffice to say all our complaints went unheeded.

Don’t get conned into paying 10 euros for the safe at reception. All the codes are set to 1111 so use for free like members do.

The beach at the bottom of the resort is a dog beach. What’s that? A beach where you can bring your dog of course. And lots of Spaniards overflow onto the public beach with their dogs so you have to walk a fair way to avoid risking stepping in canine poo.

Do go to Fuengirola. We had a great time there as a family. Lots of great restaurants and beaches.

Don’t be fooled. Nice resort, but no respect for loyalty

We have been CLC members for 16 years and for the most part, our holidays have been relaxing and enjoyable. However, in more recent years accommodation has been hard to come by at California Beach (San Diego Suites and Santa Cruz).

Having tried to book 18 months in advance for this Summer, we were told there was limited availability. Sadly, this wears thin with us as we were booking a holiday outside of the school holiday period. When mentioning this to the CLC consultant, we were told that the low availability was due to Spanish holidays. PS. Over our holiday, we saw only one Spanish family, with no children!

We did finally manage to get an apartment for our stay in San Diego Suites, however, it was not even close to the quality experienced from other stays. The apartment was clean and well equipped, but since our membership entitles us to 2 free upgrades, this was far from what we were expecting.

On further investigation, it transpired that you can book apartments on Booking.com, which will explain the low availability. Furthermore, after speaking to other members around the pool, a number of apartments were empty in close proximity to where they were staying. To add insult to injury, the new Signature apartments have replaced the larger ones with Jacuzzi’s, which is another contributor to the ‘low availability.’

Until CLC Management can present a very compelling explanation for the lack of loyalty to long term members such as ourselves, we would not consider investing a penny more.

Message to Club La Costa Management: Look after your members (customers) and they will look after you!

We stayed here on a bonus week.

The accommodation we had was great 3 bedroom apartment even though there was 4 of us it was just like home from home the kitchen was fully equipped with dishwasher, washing machine, and oven with hob.

Also 2 bathrooms, there was plenty of space, the site is very large and spread out there is a small supermarket on site and also Sam’s pantry that sells beverages, cakes, snacks and a few other essentials.

We also ate in a few of the restaurants Safari and another one next to Sam’s pantry the food was superb.

There was a local hypermarket that is about 10 minutes walk from where we stayed and the local town of Fuengirola about a 20-30 minutes walk.

All in all, we had a good holiday apart from the weather but you have no control over that

This is a place I would not recommend. We were offered a free holiday to this place via a phone call. It is an extremely hilly holiday complex 30 minutes walk from Fuengirola.

Our first apartment was at the bottom of a hill which had to climbed every time we wanted to go anywhere and about 30 metres from a busy dual carriageway (imagine the constant traffic noise ) although we couldn’t see it as it was hidden by a 5 metre high hedge which was our outlook from our window and patio. The first two nights we were awoken in the early hours by the sound of hammering and drilling ( unknown to us , they were refurbishing apartments in the same block as us, with construction work going on throughout the night ). On the third night we again were awoken at 3 am by the sound of what sounded like a “sand blaster” which carried on until 6 am.

Obviously we demanded that we be moved to a quieter area . Our second apartment was much quieter although smaller with a washing machine in the bathroom !

As part of the holiday we had agreed to listen to a presentation about the Club La Costa company, although the sales pitch was not at all pressured ( in fact the two sales girls were very pleasant), it did last 6 hours, so a day wasted really, they did say that this was not a “timeshare ” but to my mind it was the same as timeshare so we were not convinced by the price tag of £19.000 to buy into their available holiday resorts. So do beware if you are offered a holiday to Club La Costa, this is what you will be asked to pay ! ( or at least in the region of £15.000 to £20.000).

If you have any mobility problems or are elderly, do not even think about going as every journey you make from the complex will be either downhill or uphill.

It is a huge complex which has a small road train which runs every 30min to take you around the complex so that is a plus point.