I stayed for 10 nights at the end of june / beginning of july and thoroughly enjoyed the whole stay. The staff are very firendly and they can't do enough for your! We were lucky enough to not stay at the hotel during UK school holidays and this suited us perfectly as there were ample amounts of everything to go round. The hotel was not unbusy though, there were a fairly large number of guests staying there during our visit and there were no complaints that we heard of.
There were not that many British guests staying at the Occidental when we stayed and this was ideal for us. There were mainly German guests there the first few days of our stay (end of June) and they soon disappeared at the beginning of July and they were replaced by Spanish guests. This was fantastic as, unlike most British holiday makers, they were unselfish, polite and relatively quiet!
The hotel staff, although they speak good English, really appreciate any communication you make in Spanish and the service you receive after this is outstanding. This is not to say that if you don't speak any Spanish then you will have appauling service - far from it - however, there was a noticable upgrade in service we received after speaking the native language.
There were a limited amount of all inclusive drinks/cocktails that were included in this option and the guests that were not all inclusive had commented on the price of the alcoholic drinks. The hotel itself is not far from the main town of Costa Teguise and a 5 minute stroll out of the front entrance will see you in the main hub of things where the drinks are much lower in price.
I'm glad that we went for the all inclusive option as this worked out very economical considering the price of food and drink at the hotel itself. The rest of Costa Teguise is not that expensive to eat/drink in though and there are some definite bargins to be had along the beach, in the pubs especially.
The hotel has a good standard of food, however I'm glad we didn't pay the 16Euro and 26Euro price tage each day for lunch and dinner respectively. There was chips every single day for the fussy eaters! And there were rice and pasta dishes at every linch and dinnertime. There was fresh fish and meat dishes on the menu everyday and there was always vegetables, salad and fruit available if you prefer. The deserts were a bit on the random side and it was a 'guest what it is' with some of the dishes! However they were all lovely, if not a bit strange to begin with!
This hotel is a definite recommendation and if/when I return to Lanzarote, I will certainly consider this hotel.