We opted to take our family holiday this year in Fuerteventura partly because I had never been to the Island, partly because the Sheraton Fuerteventura looked a great hotel for my girls aged 12 and 7 and importantly because the Canary Islands in Summer offer superb value when you compare them to seasonal resorts such as Cyprus, Greece.
We had a great time in Fuerteventura, we would go back (in fact the girls are begging already) but there were a couple of things worth knowing before you book.
Arrival is great - with a 4 hour flight to the Canary Islands from London the children had had enough and it was a delight for all of us to just have a 10 minute taxi ride to get to the Sheraton Fuerteventura (approx 15 Euros and nearly all taxi's had car seats in them). An obvious consequence of this is that you do hear the planes from the hotel fairly loudly - around 12 flights a day.
The hotel felt spacious and airy - very much like the Sheraton La Caleta in Tenerife or the Kempinski Estepona in Spain in design and feel. Large pools, plenty of sunbeds and umbrellas, so it never felt crowded.
The two smaller pools are widely advertised as being heated - this may be the case in winter but in August they were too cold for me to get in! Fortunately the children's pool was lovely and warm and being large with fun fountains and features this was a big hit.
The kid's club is a purpose built air-conditioned room with standard toys - ball pit, crafty things, indoor climbing frame and a good timetable of planned activities (mini golf, football, water disco) in addition to indoor fun. The staff spoke good English and my youngest loved it for a couple of hours a day and made lots of friends there but the majority of children were under 10 and my 12 year old was not interested.
The beach is lovely, sandy and expansive. Sunbeds and umbrellas are available but are 10 Euro a day (2 sunbeds, umbrella) as it is not owned by the hotel. Pedaloes were available for hire. The only catch was it was windy (as I understand it more than often is) and much as this meant the temperature felt pleasant the sand did blow up a bit which was annoying and we spent most of our time around the pools.
The great thing about the Sheraton Fuerteventura for families is its location and just five minutes’ walk along a promenade takes you to small shopping centre with a big supermarket (everything available for babies), a few shops and some activities such as kid's trampolines etc.
In the other direction across some scrub land is the main town. The terrain is sandy and uneven and you couldn’t take a buggy on this and my youngest wouldn’t walk it so we walked around on the road which takes about 20 minutes and a taxi back (3.5 Euros). It is a typical small tourist town with the usual sorts of shops and tourist restaurants and a little harbour. Pleasant but nothing particularly noteworthy.
We had a Junior Suite which was very spacious for a family of 4 with a kingsize bed and 2 proper single beds and there was still room for a table and sofa. The balcony was large - see picture below!
The deluxe rooms do allow 2 adults and 2 children to share there is just less space (and they interconnect so if you prefer 2 separate rooms this is an option). The Premium Deluxe rooms are on the ground floor and have a very large terrace which is nice but now having seen them they would be shady (lots of plants and Cacti).
Major irritation of mine, not enough to ruin the holiday of course, but although there was tea and coffee making facilities in the room, we were charged 3.5 Euros per cup we made for ourselves!
Breakfast was a good buffet spread but the evening buffet was only just OK, the same spread most nights and I have to be honest did get boring. There was fish, and a selection on the hot plate and then the chef would cook steak, pork, fish etc. but little to excite and often barely warm.
I hope overall you have a positive impression of the Sheraton Fuerteventura from my description of our family holiday despite a few moans along the way, it is a good option for an excellent hotel for a week in the sun with your family.
Full hotel details of Sheraton Fuerteventura, go >>
