Altamar Aparthotel, Grand Canary

...from a stay at the Altamar Apartments in Gran Canaria on Monday. Although tired from the night flight and drive home I am feeling relaxed and much less stressed out about the forthcoming wedding....

So we booked to stay at the Altamar literally just three weeks before we flew out. We booked through Thomas Cook online with JMC as the tour operator.

Location......

The altamar apartments are located at the ...
...the two sides. The Altamar doesn't look out from the hillside to Puerto Rico, it is located around the back of the mountain. So the views are not quite as good as on the other side but your slightly closer to Amadores.

Located just outside the hotel you have a taxi rank and a bus stop so transport to and from the hotel is not a problem and within very easy reach.

The Europa Centre is just a five minute walk from the ... more

Well I have just returned from a stay at the Altamar Apartments in Gran Canaria on Monday. Although tired from the night flight and drive home I am feeling relaxed and much less stressed out about the forthcoming wedding....

So we booked to stay at the Altamar literally just three weeks before we flew out. We booked through Thomas Cook online with JMC as the tour operator.

Location......

The altamar apartments are located at the top of the hillside in Puerto Rico Gran Canaria. If you have been to Puerto Rico you will know that all of the hotels are built into the mountain each side with your main commercial centre, beach, public swimming pool, water park, mini golf etc down the bottom in the middle of the two sides. The Altamar doesn't look out from the hillside to Puerto Rico, it is located around the back of the mountain. So the views are not quite as good as on the other side but your slightly closer to Amadores.

Located just outside the hotel you have a taxi rank and a bus stop so transport to and from the hotel is not a problem and within very easy reach.

The Europa Centre is just a five minute walk from the hotel, this is where all of your Resturants, bars, shops etc are and where you'll probably spend most of your evenings (unless you stay in the hotel). Because of the location of the Altamar you miss all of the noise from the Europa centre at night time (when we stayed here before we stayed in apartments alot closer and could hear everything at night time so the location of this hotel is better)

Although the location is okay it's not the best for anyone with mobility problems being stuck up a mountain, it's all steps and hills! The hotel does accomodate for this and has two lifts and ramps at reception and the resturant. I wouldn't really recommend anyone in a wheelchair to go to Puerto Rico (although I did see people with wheelchairs there). You'd have to take a taxi most places.

If you want to walk anywhere the location is fine aswell. Like I say a five minute walk to the Europa Centre, five-ten minute walk to some steps behind the Riosol hotel which take you all the way down the mountain to Puerto Rico Beach (Nearly 700 steps, yep we counted!!) and a 15 minute walk down to Amadores beach.

First Impressions Count.....

On Arrival at the Altamar it looks fairly impressive for a aparthotel which 'official' rating is only 1 key. To be honest I was expecting a dump for a 1 key but first impressions really do count and was much better than we thought it would be.

The reception area was large, cool and spacious. There were plenty of comfy chairs and tables around if you wanted to relax or for us spend time waiting for your coach on your return journey. There are also 5 stations for the internet if you wanted to send an email home to let people you arrived safely or if you just wanted to surf the net. There was also a large TV screen around the corner in the reception area which nearly always had something on which was handy when waiting a few hours for the coach to pick us up. Just off the reception area there was a spar shop which you could buy food or any bits which you had forgotten. Small but had more than enough for your stay.

Check in was swift and the staff were friendly and spoke very good English (makes me feel bad that I can say no more than about three words in Spanish)

The Complex.......

Is divided into two halfs, A Side and B Side. A side being reception side and B the furthest side of the hotel. We stayed in B side. Each side has it's own lift which can only access that side (apart from floor 4 which you can get to the resturant and pool from both) so if a lift breaks down (like it did while we stayed, it's steps all the way!) There are nine floors, each spilit into three levels (which makes even more steps!) We we're on floor two.

Because of the split level it took finding the apartment quite a while as it was a bit confusing until we realised it was spilt. Every room has a sea view. What we also found was strange was to get into your apartment you has to go in through the balcony and through the sliding glass doors, they didn't have a front door as such! We saw many people get confused and walk onto our balcony thinking it was theres, and I have to admit I done the same!!

The Apartment was quite small compared to others we have stayed in. The living area has a sofa which could fold out into a bed, table, side lamp, ceiling fax, cabinet and coin operated TV, table and four chairs, kitchen area with cooking rings, microwave, toaster, fridge with freezer compartment and utensils, plates, glasses etc. The bathroom was standard but didn't have a bath, but a shower cubicle of sorts which was very small and a curtain that didn't fit accross so we ended up with water everywhere. The bedroom was very small with two single beds pushed together, built in wardrobes and a safety deposit box.

I heard the apartments were being refurbished last year. We couldn't decide if ours had been done or not. Some parts like the kitchen cabinets/sink and the bathroom sink looked very good and in new condition but the rest of the apartment looked like it hadn't been done. The ceiling fans, one in the living area and one in the bedroom also looked new and as there was no air conditioning these helped quite a lot in the heat. The balcony was the largest we have ever had and had a table and four chairs and two sun loungers. If you wanted to hire umbrellas you could do so from reception. This also applied to kettles, fans and hairdryers.

Some of the apartments a few floors up were being refurbished as we saw some workers who were ripping out a room but this didn't affect us at all. The other thing we noticed was workmen were appling an extra railing on the balcony's in apartments in A block. We could see that nearly all on that side were done. None in B block were done as yet. This I think is a improvment as the walls on the balcony are low and could be a hazard for people travelling with children.

In our weeks stay we had the maids come in mid week to empty the bins and tidy the bathroom and again two days before going home when they also made the beds. Sheets were not changed during our stay.

The beds were not overally comfortable but never are in apartments like these (just think how many people stay in these hotels!)

As mentioned the room had a saftey deposit box which I was glad about, I feel a lot safer having our valuables locked up. This required a 5 Euro deposit and 10 Euros for the week. For peace of mind this is well worth it and you get the deposit back when you return the key at the end of the stay.

The only complaint really about the apartment was on a couple of days we did have a problem with ants in the living area, whether we had dropped some crums or something I don't know. We managed to get rid of them and didn't become a massive problem like a previous hotel we stayed in on holiday a couple of years ago.

The reception is located on level 8 (top level) and the main area for the pools and resturant are all on level 4. We were staying self catering so we didn't use the resturant but from what we saw of it, it looked nice and a reasonable size. There were two pools, A pool and B pool but you could use either and both could be accessed from level 4. We just used pool B and the pool and surrounding area was always clean and tidy. There are a large amount of sunbeds, matresses and umbrellas located by each pool and we didn't have any problems getting beds but the hotel did seem fairly quiet so this may not be so easy in the busy summer months. Pool A had a seperate baby pool and pool B had a section cornered off for small children. Near pool A there were was also a childrens play area and a small football/basketball court. Near the resturant there were a couple of pool table and football games. Also a couple of days through the week the hotel has a lady who does massages and another who does nails by the pool. All details can be found on the hotel notice board.

Entertainment, Food and Drink......

When we booked this hotel complex we were offered baord of self catering or bed and breakfast but we were under the impression while staying here you could go half board too. If you were self catering like us you could pay to have meals at the hotel. If I remember rightly it was around 8 Euros 50 cents per adult for an evening meal buffet. You could also get a 'takeaway' meal which could be ordered from the comfort of your apartment (menus in apartment) and then picked up. These were very reasonably priced. We didn't use this service as the Europa centre was so close by with many resturants all there to be tried. We liked the freedom of going out some where different every night but also liked the fact that if we wanted to stay at the hotel it could have been possible.

The Entertainement at the Altamar was more than what we expected. They have their own entertainments crew 'Big' Gazza and 'Tall' Paul who were on hand during the day for limited daytime activities such as pool tournaments, games in the swimming pool etc and again in the evening where each evening started at 4pm with The Altamar Happy Hour 'with your buy one get one free's' which they tell you over and over again. This is when Pool B becomes alive with Music for an hour, Gazza reminding everyone every 5 minutes it's happy hour and the build up to the game of cash bingo at 5pm. We were going to go to the resturant area and play this on a couple of occasions but couldn't be bothered to move from our loungers!! (how lazy!) but it would have been worth our while, every day except for our last the prize money was well over 100 Euros, so it could have been worth it for a 1 euro ticket or 5 euros for 6.

Early evening sees the children/JMC Kidsworld Mini disco, then an evening show from 10pm (Abba tribute band, 70's/80's night, parrot show etc) and then 11-12midnight was disco and karaoke. Again, we didn't really stay in the hotel much. We don't have children, are only 25 and 27 so prefer some local bars down at the europa centre.

Even though we didn't join in the main activities going on at the Altamar we saw Paul and Gazza around the complex and they always spoke and were very friendly. You couldn't knock the guys and I heard other people staying at the complex that they thought they were superb and enertainment was very good.

The entertainment program is all listed on the board in reception and is split into two weeks (it always tells you which week your on) so if your staying for two weeks then you know your not going to get the same shows twice.

Do you Fancy a day out?.........

Well if your not one for sitting by the pool every day for a week or two theres plenty to do around Puerto Rico and the rest of Gran Canaria. Where you decide to book is up to you, but shop around. The reception area of the Altamar holds many leaflets of excursions which you can help yourself too. Also if you pop up to the europa centre theres a trip booking agency there called WOW! We picked a leaflet up from there the first night to look over possible trips which we would do while we were on the Island. Don't forget you also have your JMC welcome meeting. They also try and flog you the trips too. Comparing the prices from JMC to WOW! you could save yourself a fair few euros booking yourself and not through JMC. We booked through WOW exactly the same trip as JMC were offering, saving 9 euros and getting exactly the same, a coach with a WOW English Rep. Wow! also offered other trips which JMC didn't (Puerto de Mogan Market being one of them & had a special offer on) as well as booking parasailing, jet skiing etc which again you couldn't book through JMC.

I'd recommend the JMC welcome meeting though just to get some local infomation and meet the reps, just in case you need them. They take no more than 20 minutes of you holiday.

If you fancy going to Palmitos park or Aqualand this trip could also be booked directly through the reception at the Altamar, again a fraction of the cost of through JMC which included your travel.

Staff..........

All of the staff we came accross at the Altamar were very friendly and couldn't do enough for you. Reception staff especially and they also spoke very good English. Reception is manned 24 hours a day (night hours by a guard)

It's time to go home to rainy England......

On your day of departure you have to vacate your room by midday. Luggage can be stored in the luggage room (key from reception). When we asked for the key they advised we shouldn't leave our portable cd player in the luggage room 'just in case' and offered to hold it behind reception for us until we were picked up late afternoon to save having to lug it around with us all day.

JMC you keep mentioning......

This property is a JMC exclusive property. It said online when booking you may have people from JMC Germany etc staying as well but we didn't. It is ALL British people here. The reps at this hotel (when we went) were Dan and Becky (Becky was on pop idol, and bless her ended up most days in the pool fully clothed, those boys did like picking on her!!) The service from these two was brilliant even though we didn't go on any JMC tours. We had no complaints, really nice people, always spoke and were interested in you rather than pretending to be interested in you.

*Overall*

I liked this place after getting used to it. Going back to self catering apartments was a shock to the system after staying at a couple of really lovely top hotels. This place is definately better than it's official 1 Key Rating.

The place was clean, apartments although small were more than enough for us. Services and enertainment were available if you wanted it.

Good reception service, Rep Service and facilities.

How much and how....

We booked through Thomas cook online (althought their site seemed to be having some problems so we had to ring up but as we tried and couldn't book online they honoured the internet price which was about £20.00 cheaper) You can also book through JMC online which goes to Thomas cook or in your local travel agent. Obviously though you will be travelling with Thomas cook (all part of the same group).

We paid (before flight supplements, flight meals etc) £139.00 per person but total cost after all your bits had been added on was £530.00 for both of us self catering for a week (flights, transfers, inflight-meals etc included in this total price) I think we had a reasonable deal for what was on offer.

Would we go again....

Yes and No. Yes because the location was good and the hotel was better than we expected. But No because we like to try other places out and I think in busy periods this complex is very geared towards families and children. I wouldn't rule out returning to the Altamar completely.

Other bits....

Official Rating 1 Key
JMC rating 3 Stars
257 Apartments

http://www.aparthotelaltamar.com/

I will add some photos from our holiday so you can see some of the things which I have been talking about. 

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