Puerto de la Cruz

When we arrived at the Hotel Turquesa Playa in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain, it was already pitch dark. Had it not been for the palm trees we had seen on the way from the airport and the warm breeze we had felt, we could have landed in a hotel in Margate or Brighton, we heard only English! Groups of elderly British ladies and gentlemen were toing and froing in the lobby or sitting together playing cards, drinking, smoking, chatting, laughing, we thought we had gate-crashed an OAPs party.

You think I should get going and describe the hotel proper instead of the guests? Well, I think if you stay in a place for, say, two weeks, its not unimportant who you stay with and meet continuously, is it?

The hotel has 350 double rooms, i.e., when theres full house, there are 700 guests. In the winter season, that is from November to February the British community is the most numerous ethnic group with nearly 400 members, followed by the Germans. [Guess who puts towels on the deckchairs? (answer below)] Then there are also some French and Italian guests as well as a few Spaniards from the mainland and the odd Japanese family.

Nearly all the British guests come with the travel organisation SAGA (from 50 to seemingly dead), only four didnt, they came with Palmair, and are thus a homogenous group, the Germans come with 6 different travel organisations and are not, they dont know each other and arent interested in socialising with their fellow countrymen.

The SAGA peeps come only in these four months, the rest of the year the guests are more mixed age-wise and nationality-wise, in the summer months there are many families; the hotel prides itself in entertaining the little ones with special programmes. Before there can be families, there must be couples, the hotel has a special offer for honeymooners!

The Gran Hotel Turquesa Playa (built in 1996) is at the western end of the town Puerto de la Cruz, 1km from the centre, 5 minutes from the Bus Station (In the Spanish of the Canary Islands: Estacion de la Guagua, what a wonderful word!), 10 minutes away from the Loro Parque (for the readers who know the place), the two streets running alongside are cul-de-sacs, so its very quiet around the hotel. From the entrance its 100m to the ‘Playa Jardin, the last project of the famous Canarian architect Cesar Manrique and the beach with the black volcanic sand.

The lobby is four storeys high with three lift shafts on either side and a panoramic glass lift going up to the terrace on the roof. To the right of the entrance are several shops: a car rental, a small supermarket, a hairdresser, a souvenir and a photo shop, to the left is the reception and the entrance to the indoor swimming-pool (water 30°), the gym and a centre for physiotherapy.

Throughout the lobby groups of wicker sofas and armchairs are arranged, this is the area where people meet and socialise, it‘s huge and not very cosy, if you travel alone, you feel lost there. Opposite the main entrance a marble ramp rises leading to the next level of the building, which has been built into a slight slope, to the restaurant, the bar and the exit to the outdoor swimming-pools, a large one for everybody (according to a swimmer: colder than the North Sea!) and a smaller one for children. The area around the swimming-pools is full of deck-chairs onto which - youve guessed it correctly, I hope - the British (!) guests put their towels already in the morning.

Every night theres live entertainment in the bar featuring Canarian folk dancing, flamenco, Latino jazz or African groups.

The restaurant is of the self-service kind, the food on offer is overwhelming in quantity but favours the meaties, if youre a veggie youll find it monotonous after a while. The sweets are good and its nearly impossible not to gain wait, theres much choice, one simply has to try a bit of everything. The staff are efficient and friendly, why, we were even welcomed with hugs and kisses by two young ladies who remembered our faces from the year before!

The rooms are not too spacious and clean, the beds good, the bathrooms well equipped, with a bathrobe for each guest. As in all hotel rooms all over the world theres a desk although tourists whore not on a business trip hardly ever need one, a normal table, however, is not there. There is a sofa in front of which a table would be useful. And as in all hotel rooms all over the world the lamps are fixed to the wall in a way so that you cannot read in bed! Why, oh why, is that so? Before going to sleep you can only watch TV [if you cant think of anything else ;-) ] , for the English speaking and understanding guests theres BBC World, Sky News and CCN.

The balcony has a table and two chairs and three clothes lines, good idea this, if only they were only as long as the balcony is wide. Instead they are endless, at least 10 m long, and when you pull them out of their holes and hook them in on the other side and then hang something on them, they start rolling becoming longer and longer and the weight of one pair of knickers, one bra and one pair of socks is already too much, the things touch the floor.

As youve already learnt we were there the second time, by this we had become ‘special guests‘ and got a discount of 10% on all extras (drinks, laundry). If we come again, the discount will rise up to 20%. Its not improbable that well get it one day! We know two other hotels and have visited a third, but we like Turquesa Playa best.

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