Tropical Park Apartments – Tenerife (Tenerife)

Member Name: macluke

Product:	Tenerife
Date:	13/10/01 (942 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good restaurants, away from the hordes

Disadvantages: no beach

This article was original written last year for a different publication, however I thought it was only right to share it with others as unfortunately the original publication went bust before the article saw light of day.

It’s been a long time since we last visited Tenerife, believe it or not we have only been there once before, nearly seven years ago. That was a May month that won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

As with a lot of people we had decided to go on holiday that May 1993 at short notice and had booked a last minute deal that could take us to any place on the island, which it did. Just south of the capital on the east side of the island we were dropped of at this huge white hotel. We found our room and later on sauntered downstairs only to be confronted by what can only be described as people who were at a rather later stage of life than we were! In fact the hotel was used by Saga holidays and as it turned out not just the British version but also the German and Spanish versions. There is nothing more frightening than being scurried along by a lot a black dressed elderly Spanish folk. Needless to say we were a bit concerned about whether we would fit in, we need not have bothered, as the plus side was that the few of us who were not with Saga had the wonderful swimming pool and it’s accessories to ourselves. After that everything went swimmingly (excuse the pun). We enjoyed a very relaxing week at the resort and ventured around this part of the island going inevitably to Mount Teide, but after taking one look at the cable car, and remembering previous experiences in Austria we said ‘no way Jose.’

There was only one bad aspect to this holiday and that was when I was told to keep the noise down, by what seemed to be a seventy year old man; which surprised me as it was during the ‘disco’ that had been running for the older citizens!

You may wonder by now what this has to do wit
h timeshare etc. Well as I said we were returning after a long time and this time we were in a timeshare apartment that is affiliated with RCI.

We were looking forward to our Easter holiday it had been a long winter and we needed a break. Unlike our previous visit there would be three of us this time as we were taking our son. We had arrived at Luton airport and knew fairly quickly that this was going to be an interesting holiday, as soon as we got to the check in desk. It seems our son was not allocated a seat or his pre-booked food despite having paid for three adult price seats.

So there we are in Luton Airport about to go on holiday without our son! Needless to say they had to sort that out, funnily enough they still managed to give us three seats at the front of the aircraft and Alexander actually got his requested meal.

After getting through to the airport lounge, we were just having our spot of Dutch courage (my wife does not like taking off or landing) when what should happen; the FIRE ALARM goes off. If you have never been to Luton airport then you won’t realise what a bit of sport this can turn out to be. Do you take your drinks with you, do you leave them in the bar, do you drink up very quickly and then wonder if you can hold on before you need the toilet? Having decided which to do (the first option) you follow everyone else out but get stuck, as the exit door is locked! It gets opened and people start to move out onto the outside stairs and wait at the bottom, which of course gets crowded, so it holds up people inside. The people down the bottom are in a dilemma as they don’t like to move too far from the building as the aircraft are not too far away, so you have a choice do you get blown up/enveloped in flames or move to the tarmac and get sucked in the engines or your head chopped of by the wings! Once the fire brigade arrived, we had no choice it was the tarmac and any problems would be solved. Vi
sions came and went but I can honestly say they were not helped by the member of airport staff who came and asked if there was anyone wishing to go to LOURDES!

Eventually the event passed by and we were allowed to go back in and hence on to our flight. We took off, what else could go wrong? That was a question that should not have been asked. It seems that the baggage handlers in Tenerife were doing what only they know how to do best, going extremely slowly. We arrived on the tarmac and sat there for about an hour and a half before the bus came to pick us up (we could have walked to the terminal if only they let you but the name of this game is to make it as uncomfortable as possible). Having got into the terminal building we then had to wait for our cases and of course there was no information available as to when these would come through. Fortunately we had bought new cases to go on this holiday and they were bright yellow so it was possible to see when they were off loaded and then it was just a matter of waiting to see which ramp they came down. Just as I had sent my wife to look for a representative so see if they knew anything I spotted the cases and collected them. Fortunately for us we had taken delivery of a hire car (that had also taken some time) and did not have to wait for any tour bus.

Believe it or not we got to our resort some four hours late but there we were in the Tropical Park apartments. For those of you who have not been there they are interesting from two viewpoints. They have the step back building approach so that when you are having a good sleep the Germans who are inevitably in the apartment above you decide to get up and because of this stepped back approach you can hear them use the toilet followed by the sink followed by the shower followed by the toilet. I have personally never known two people use these facilities so much in the space of half an hour. The other interesting point about these apartments
is the fridges never get defrosted, which by the time we got there meant ours was on a losing battle. So the first job, defrost the fridge. This took nearly all the next day but eventually we had a machine that purred, it is such a shame that this could not have been done before hand. It’s the little things that count.

Despite this the apartment was very good as was the establishment itself, plus friendly people abounded. One thing struck me as odd though, you can if you wish buy a set of meals such as three dinners for a set price and the meals were extremely good value but not many people took up the offer. Was there something they knew that I did not?

The area around the apartments is not in itself wonderful as there is no beach and most of the nightlife is in Playa de las Americas, but we had not come with that in mind. We had another purpose; Mount Teide was to be conquered!

We duly drove our hire car through the countryside of Tenerife towards our goal. As you travel from the coast up into the foothills it is a bit like going up in an aeroplane and you have to swallow so as to pop your ears! The area that surrounds Mount Teide needs little explanation, as I am sure most people know that it was here that Planet of the Apes was filmed. Having reached the car park at the bottom we trekked up to the cable car. Cameras in hand husband, wife and son headed towards the entrance. On arriving at the entrance it seems that only one had survived without looking up and seeing the cable car coming down, I was alone again! Try as you might a walk around the shop and ice cream there was no way that they were going to go up in that cable car so we retreated to the Ape-scape and walked along some paths to find a suitable place for a picnic.

What a wonderful view we had of Mount Teide (not the one I had expected but then..).

We had rather more success with one of our other outings which was to the Gorge near Adeje.
After parking on one of steepest inclines you can park on and placing a brick or two under the wheels to prevent the car slipping back we made our way to the gorge. This gorge seems to go on forever it is a wonderful walk sometimes in hot roasting sunshine, then every so often in that much to be sought after shade, going uphill one moment then down the next. We encountered many people doing the same thing but after two hours or so of trying to find the end we decided to have our picnic and return the way we came as our six year old was becoming weary and at least if you give six year olds a goal (the inevitable ice cream) they seem to perk up again.

I cannot say that we wondered anywhere else on our holiday except to the local restaurants which were extremely filling events and we even occasionally got the meal without the mandatory chips that the Spanish think we live on.

I should also recommend the swimming area of the apartments we were staying at as they are wonderful for the kids with different levels and more importantly the area surrounding them is covered in that green felt type material so no burning feet or slipping all over the place, plus it also has a play area for them when they get fed up of the pool. The other good thing about the pool as far as adults is concerned (especially we Brits) is that the inevitable rush occurs early on and beach towels in hand they go down and ‘book’ all the available beds and then return to their apartments to have breakfast etc. Well the management does not like this and so within an hour or so someone collects all the towels and the beds become free again, funnily enough this is around the time that the British seem to make their appearance!

There is one last thing I have to say about the entertainment that was put on, most of it was very mediocre but there was one notable exception Loros the parrot show, this is a show not to be missed it is so appalling it should have ap
peared as a sequel to the famous Monty Python sketch. It seems that this ‘show’ takes about an hour and a half except for the first hour you are left hanging around wondering what is going to happen as the parrots are taken round the audience and people are photographed with them on their shoulders, heads etc. then eventually the great show begins with parrots bicycling along and doing various tricks. Now you might say I am being a bit harsh on the parrots, well I am not as it seems that if they get the trick wrong they get another go and the audience still claps, I’d like to see a magician get away with that!

So what of the holiday overall. It was good to see Tenerife again so much so that we are going again in October to Club Casablanca in Puerto de la Cruz (Mount Teide may yet be conquered!), the apartments are very good and spacious once you’ve sorted out the fridge and the real reason for going to Tenerife…Well it seems that the original saga holiday had a side effect that became more noticeable as the months went by and our son Alexander was born some nine months later; this despite the fact that doctors had said that we could not have children. It seems that the Canaries are aptly named- The Fortunate Islands!

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