After a locator form nightmare, Lynne Hyland enjoys a dream holiday to sunny Costa Adeje
Perhaps we were out of practice with overseas travel, or perhaps the pre-flight swabs had dislodged a few brain cells. But in our defence, those passenger locator forms were terribly complicated.
Listen, anyone can accidentally omit their children and leave them temporarily stranded on the wrong side of Spanish border control… right?
It was a nerve-jangling start to my family’s first pandemic foray abroad, at a time when everything seemed, well, foreign.
Thank goodness our destination had a reassuringly familiar feel.
We were returning to an old family favourite, Tenerife’s Costa Adeje, and we’d booked into the soothing nostalgia of Iberostar; a Spanish hotel chain we and our kids, aged 11 and 12, had enjoyed many happy holidays with over the years. “Welcome home,” said the receptionist at the freshly renovated four-star Bouganville Playa, pressing a glass of cava into my still-quivering hand.
I decompressed even faster when I saw the spacious family set-up.
Ideal for those with older kids, it comprised two stylish rooms with an interconnecting door which was swiftly shut in our faces with a muffled “see you at the buffet” from the other side.
Ah the buffet. The thing by which all-inclusive holidays live or die. I had wondered whether it would suffer in this era of social distancing and sanitation paranoia, and I wondered even more when, on Day Two, we learned the restaurant had switched from “help yourself ” to “assisted service”.
Officially, the story was a change in local Covid regulations, but I wouldn’t have blamed anyone if it had been due to the amount of food my kids had piled on their plates on Day One.
Luckily, the rules didn’t impact on our enjoyment. Service was slick and friendly, culinary themes switched up daily, and masked-up holidaymakers stood cheerfully in line, content to be anywhere but within their own four walls.
Like all hotels on the island, Bouganville Playa was running at reduced capacity, but otherwise daytimes felt much like old times, with the kids dipping in and out of the pools and Mini Club.
Evenings were lower key than usual, with dance floors temporarily suspended, but we rather enjoyed
sitting out in the warm air, chair-dancing along to live acts by the pool.
The hotel was a pebble’s skim from a black volcanic sand beach where we paddled by day and returned after dinner to admire the sunset.
The promenade is a 20-minute stroll from family-oriented Costa Adeje into neighbouring Playa de las Americas, which in normal times is buzzing with partygoers. It was a lot quieter than I remembered from my Club 18-30 days, which afforded us a chilled-out afternoon at Playa del Camison, with its golden sands imported from the Sahara.
There’s further sea-based fun to be had at Costa Adeje’s Puerto
Colon marina. You can take a longer sail over to the neighbouring island of La Gomera but we opted for a two-hour trip to spot whales and dolphins. They tend to linger around the off-shore fish farms, so you’ve a good chance of seeing them, and
The famous volcano is one of the best places in the world for stargazing
even if they’re being camera shy you’re guaranteed a great shot of Mount Teide rising up to the clouds.
Should that view inspire you to take a closer look at Tenerife’s famous 12,198ft volcano, you can visit it either by day or at night, when it’s one of the best places in the world for star-gazing. If you’re thinking of taking kids to gaze upon the heavens, try fostering a pre-holiday interest in the Percy Jackson books, as their Greek mythology theme dovetails nicely with the commentary on the constellations.
Finally, no family trip to Tenerife is complete without a trip to
Siam Park water park, which has
(quite rightly) been voted
Tripadvisor’s best water park in the world for the past seven years. The entire attraction is themed like a Thai kingdom, complete with a white sand beach and turquoise wave pool “ocean” that could pass for Ko Samui at a squint. Everything from the thrill rides to the lazy river is styled like traditional Thai architecture, and it’s surprisingly beautiful… and occasionally terrifying.
Do mind your language if you brave the vertical flume that flings you from the top of a Thai palace into a shark tank. Everyone knows that’s not how you pronounce “Phuket”.
If you’d like to calm your nerves in style and don’t mind splashing out in more ways than one at Siam Park, treat yourself to the Champagne Club. Alongside perks such as fast-track ride passes and all-inclusive food at the “beach” restaurants, it gives you access to a private oasis with white sand, palm trees, and day beds overlooking the wave pool.
As my husband and I sipped ice-cold fizz from the peace of our four-poster cabana, we felt we really could have been in Thailand.
Now that’s my idea of holiday bliss– being transported halfway across the world in a flash, and no passenger locator forms
required.