Mix with the rich and wannabe famous (Marbella)

Member Name: janeh

Product:	Marbella
Date:	05/06/01 (1150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean, Great hotel, Great restaurants

Disadvantages: Expensive, Touristy, Bull fighting

I have just returned from three days in Marbella. As part of my job, I organised a trip for my company’s major customers, unfortunately that meant I have to go too….well someone had to! I will tell you about the hotel we stayed in and the places we visited.

We stayed at the Don Carlos Beach Resort. This is one of the tallest hotels in the area and is quite spectacular. The lobby is very luxurious with lots of sofas and fabulous lighting etc. There is a concierge service and an excellent reception – they seemed to speak any language.

Some of us stayed in rooms in the tower and others, including me in the main hotel which is three stories high. The rooms are large and clean. I had a double (all to myself) which has a king size bed, TV, table, chairs, dresser and large wardrobe. The en-suite bathroom was clean and a toilet, bath, shower and bidet.

However, the grounds are the main pull of the hotel, they are magnificent. You go through the hotel passing bars, restaurants and conference facilities. Outside you first come across a large pool, which is quite long and therefore suitable for doing a good few lengths in! Next to this pool is another pool, which is much smaller and shallower so you can just sit and relax in it or send the kids in. If you can tear yourself away from the pool area you can take a stroll through the hotel gardens.

The gardens consist of large ponds and streams with beautiful trees, bushes, plants etc. In the pond you will find crayfish (I think that is what they were), turtles, fish and frogs. There seems to me miles of garden which eventually takes you down to - guess what – another pool. This one is beautiful and comes complete with landscaping, waterfalls and patio area. To the side of the pool is a large area under a canopy in which the hotel serves a buffet lunch. They have a cold and hot buffet and you can eat whatever you want. There is every type of meat, fish, fruit, vegetabl
e, dessert etc that you could wish to find. Excellent!

From this area you can stroll down to the beach. The hotel has a section of beach with chairs etc, however it is not totally private. The beach seems to go on forever and on a good day you can apparently see Gibraltar. The sea seems clean enough, although don’t go in bare feet – there are lots of rocks and boulders just off the waters edge.

Apparently the hotel also has lots of tennis courts, gym, sauna, Jacuzzi etc, but these were all a bit too energetic for me!

During our stay we ventured down into Marbella town. There seems to be two sides to the town, old and new. The new is full of tourist shops and cafes etc. It is your typical Spanish resort, however venture off the beaten track into the old and you see a completely different side to Spain. Here there are small, narrow cobbled streets, with quaint houses and cafes etc. Many of the houses are covered in Bougainvillea – a beautiful purple climbing plant which looks beautiful. Although there are still some “tacky” shops, here you will find some of the shops where the locals go. There are some lovely little churches too which just cry out “take my photo”. If you need to eat, you will find somewhere to serve you whatever you fancy. Restaurants bars and cafes are in abundance.

Talking of bars, a lot of our party never made it back to the hotel before 4am, most night, so there are plenty of places to eat and drink. Be aware however, that many of the bars, including those in the hotel change their prices after a certain time i.e. 11.30pm. A lot of the prices then double or worse.

We also went to Puerto Banus one evening for dinner. This is just along the coast from Marbella and is rather more upper-class. As you walk along the marina, you are confronted with huge boats and yachts, the further along you walk, the smaller they get. The cars parked along side are all expensive, l
uxury and sports cars. The place is just oozing with money. There are lots of small shops selling everything, most of it at a very high price. We had a meal at a place called Silks. This is a restaurant which is decorated with jockeys shirts (silks) and horse pictures etc. The meal we had was fantastic and well paced. The atmosphere was great and there was a small band (three men and a couple of guitars) singing. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves here.

One of our organised activities was a jeep rally. This was fantastic. We were split into five groups of four and each had a jeep. We were given directions and clues to solve and had to make our way round mountain tracks and small villages. The dirt tracks really test your driving and nerve (sheer drops). The views are fantastic. In total we covered about 120km, most of which in the mountains. We had to collect things such as an orange, lemon and cork. My team found cork trees and found fruit laying under trees in orchards – some other teams went into supermarkets and bough a bottle of wine for the cork and oranges and lemons – cheats! We ended up in a place called Rhonda for lunch. This looked like a nice town, but we didn’t have time to investigate as we had to drive back to the hotel. If anyone gets the chance to take part in a jeep rally, do it. It is great fun.

Another place we visited was Mijas, a quaint town set in the mountains about half hour from Marbella. Here there are lots of shops, particularly leather and ceramics. There are also lots of cafes and a bull ring. I am very opposed to the thought of bull fighting, so didn’t visit this part of town, but those who did said it was good. I will take their word for it.

Although we only had three days here we packed a lot into it. From what I saw of the area it is worth a visit. We were lucky that all our meals, events etc were arranged for us, so we just did what we were told, if you go off your own back
, you have to find all these things for yourself.

I have never really wanted to visit Spain, but as this was paid for by my company I thought what the heck. I’m glad I went, although we didn’t have the best of weather, we all had a great time. We stayed at a good hotel , took part in some excellent events and ate at great restaurants. For the twenty people who went, the total bill was £24k inc, that is for three nights, so we had the best of everything. As for the question as to whether I would go again – perhaps not, I will stick to my favourite – the good old US of A!

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