Palm Beach Club -Playa de las Americas - Tenerife (Canary Islands)

Name: macluke

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Product:	Canary Islands
Date:	15/10/01 (2648 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good restaurants, people watching, hustle and bustle

Disadvantages: drunks, touts, street traders

After renewing our acquaintance with Tenerife by visiting Adeje at Easter time last year, we had been looking for another holiday for the summer and decided to use TAG (Tourist Advisory Group – see Timeshare) for another holiday. Lo and behold because of the lateness in enquiring all they had left were places on Tenerife. So off we went, this time to Playa Las Americas. If you have never been to this part of the island then you have not missed much, personally speaking I would tear it down and start again. However not everything is as bad as the area around Vericonas. We were staying at the Palm Beach Club which is a timeshare property but you can get in through such companies as Tag or in fact the members themselves, as there is a member who has set up an exchange shop for the other members (prices are around £180 per week for 1 bedroomed apartment). This is a high-rise (some 12 floors) and as luck would have it we actually had one of the 10 that actually exit on to the pool area and has a lawned area.

The apartments have a shopping centre with restaurants and supermarkets within. It also has a large swimming pool, a children’s pool and a couple of whirlpool/hot tubs, which are absolutely wonderful to relax in as the kids are not supposed to use them! It also has a snack bar and restaurant although they were redeveloping this as we were staying (fancy doing that in mid August). It also has some wonderful views from the top of the building. The beach is straight across the road but is of black sand and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it except if you intend to go/or have been to the West Indies, that way you can say you have swam on both sides of the Atlantic! I should also point out that the club puts on daily and nightly entertainment so there is no need to go far and yes that proverbial Loros show is one of them, but for me the best entertainment was the kiddies disco, not because of the disco itself, but the site of some male teenage
rs on the tenth floor joining in when Star trekking across the Universe was played, they were funnier than the comedian.

The area nearby also has some entertainment especially if like me you enjoy people watching. There are the timeshare touts who hover around and it is interesting to watch them especially since they have now got a new act and sell services rather than property, that is for some 2 to £3000 you can buy the possibility of having some wonderful holidays in hotels around the world plus meals at restaurants and so on and this is the introduction price it can go up tenfold depending on the length of time you wish to purchase. The one thing I will give them though, they don’t seem to pick on those who are staying at the apartments.

Another good sight to watch later on are the drunks, it seems that the Playa area is where all the youngsters of Europe come for their holiday but unfortunately, especially in the case of the British they seem to leave their brains at home and come to the island to get out of their brains in one way or another and yes there is the other.

Having set up the bad side what is there that is good about this area. There are some great restaurants and it doesn’t depend on budgets either. In fact you do not have to go far to visit one of the best, it’s in the shopping centre area and is called the Banana Garden, it has an international as well as Mexican Kitchen with live music but this is not for the early eaters, remember you are in a Spanish resort and things start later here. In the same area is a quite decent Greek restaurant called the Greek Corner (the only one on the island) and it is well worth a visit or three. If you like Indian food there are two restaurants nearby one that has all the décor and the prices to match and one that would perhaps give a transport café a run for its’ money. Guess which one is the best. Yes the transport café. It is right in the centre of the Pla
ya and overlooks what I call the yoyo, it’s that machine for the weak of mind, the one that goes up and down on large elastic strings and you sit in side this little ball and yoyo up and down preferably after you have eaten a curry and drunk several classes of lager. Anyway back to the Indian they do some decent (cheap) food here, the only criticism I would have is that they serve pappads as pappadums, but then this is true for other places on the island.

What more can I say about the area. There are some very good shops around but avoid the main drag. If you want music, beer, music, beer and like seeing drunks in the pavements, oh and you want a McDonald’s, then do not avoid the main drag. Finally watch out for the street traders (mostly from Africa) they are trying to earn a living to send money home, they are tolerated by the Spanish but for how long is a big question as they seem to proliferate around the area. As for the accommodation itself it is the first time that I can genuinely say that for two weeks I did not do anything but relax (mainly on the sun bed by the pool) as I did not hire a car or visit anywhere. Why you may ask, well I knew I was coming back in October and had a car hire as I was going to be visiting Puerto de la Cruz, but more of that later.

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