Holiday to PLAYABELLA SPA HOTEL Estepona. Well Playa del Sol-Villacana actually. October 2008
The trip from Malaga Airport was a little daunting as we had to hire a car for the week, airport shuttles weren’t available and Taxi’s wanted best part of €200 for the round trip.
A hire car from CarJet.com was only €76 for six days, plus petrol of course, that price included all insurances and collision waiver.
Finding the hotel was something else as the roads don’t seem to have names on them !
A tip for those who drive there for the first time.
Head West on the A7 (it’s about 65Km from the airport) Look for the turning to CANCELADA (cambio de sentido. (Which I think means change direction !)) and turn off there, you are now on the wrong side of the A7 dual carriageway, take the road across the motorway and then you are on a slip road running parallel to the A7, Next point to look for is Urbanization Costalita, once you find that your 200 metres away from the Playabella Hotel.
The hotel has plenty of parking spaces and as the road is a dead end leading to the sea, parking is available all along there too.
The food and amenities are out of this world, rooms are spotless and large. Bathrooms have a Circular Bathtub, Shower Cubicle, Wash Basin and leading off the main bathroom is the Toilet & Bidet. Towels are changed daily if required. For a change the AirCon is whisper quiet as is the extractor in the bathroom. The satellite TV in our room had plenty of channels but the only two in English were CNN & BBC World News also the picture quality wasn’t very good, a lot of ghosting on the screen. The corridors are all ceramic tiled and automatically lit as you walk along, very pretty and spotlessly clean but the clip-clop of high heeled shoes tends to echo all around in the still of the evening.
All-inclusive is a must in my opinion, not that we went for every meal.
The drinks seemed a little expensive for the people who weren’t AI.
Unusually 90% of the drinks were available Free Of charge to AI guests, Sprits, Liqueurs and Beers, even one brand of Champagne was on the list of zero charge.
The animation team worked really hard but were obviously on a very tight budget and having to work with a mixed nationalities audience, English, French, Spanish and German, some of the presentations were a little childish.
The hotel has a large irregular shaped outdoor pool in the centre of the complex but the water was far too cold to really enjoy the benefit of it, it looked pretty though. All but the foolhardy and kids with antifreeze in there veins were the only users, shame really as there were two separate whirl pools and a couple of tube slides built into the rock facade.
Beach towels are available for most of the day and are exchanged on a one for one basis by the outdoor pool as many times in the day as you want.
For the wimps like me there was a large indoor heated pool and a powerful Hot Jacuzzi. That got plenty of use.
Sun beds were plentiful although would imagine in the height of summer when the hotel is full to capacity there could be a shortage. The restaurant could be a problem with a full complement of guests also.
That’s all the good things.
The only downside is the geographical location, although it’s on the beach there is absolutely nothing local to it, you really do need a car or Taxi’s everywhere. Estepona is about 12Km to the west and San Pedro 15Km to the east.
Beware the beach it’s sandy down to a stony waters edge, also the beach shelves very early so wading out into the water you will suddenly find yourself in deep water, not suitable for non-swimmers or children in my opinion.
Would I recommend this hotel ? I certainly would for a relaxing break for families and the more senior guests, not for youngsters though.
- Playabella Hotel Gran
- Gran Hotel Playabella
