Elba Almeria - Almeria, Spain     

Just arrived back to the UK from my first trip to Almeria and can't wait to return to this lovely sunny place. I'd booked the Elba from the TripAdvisor reviews and wasn't disappointed. Its a great hotel in every way - modern, lovely clean spacious room, good location, great price, friendly, helpful and courteous staff who spoken English very well and indulged me whenever I tried to practice my Spanish on them! I had an evening meal on one evening and continental breakfast on one morning at the hotel and, again, great food and service. The hotel was not overly busy which probably added to the fact that the whole experience was just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

We've just had a lovely week at the Elba Almeria Hotel. It is a newly built hotel with excellent rooms and friendly staff. I'd certainly recommend it. The rooms are spacious, cleaned every day and we had fresh towels and sheets each morning. There is a minibar in the room, and tv. The bathrooms are exceptionally clean and well maintained. It seems to be more of a 'business man's hotel rather than family vacation hotel, but this didn't spoil our stay and the reception staff all speak English. The breakfast is ample, usual buffet style spanish/european food, fresh juices, cereals, bread/croissants, meats, cheeses, fruits etc and hot food can be prepared if you wish. We had 3 rooms on the 5th floor - quiet, air conditioned and very good overall. The hotel would benefit from a pool or outside area where you can relax and have a drink, though the restaurant is cool and stylish. The hotel is opposite a large air conditioned shopping mall, with all the usual shops - clothing mainly, bags, shoes, homewares etc and there are various small restaurants on the upper level serving food. We tried the tex-mex which was very reasonably priced and great quality. There is also a supermarket in the mall which is useful for any basics you might want. There is a cinema in the complex. The mall doesn't observe the usual 'siesta' closing and is open all day, with shops closing at about 9pm. The Elba Almeria Hotel is about 2kms from the beach and we used the local taxi's which were extremely cheap. We found that hardly anyone outside of the hotel speaks English, but we were able to get what we wanted in shops and restaurants, and to travel by taxi with the basic Spanish that we had. Certainly tourism is yet to spoil Almeria itself and the city is exceptionally clean and attractive. The Alcazaba Castle above the city is well worth a visit, as is the Museum of Archaeology. There are lots of small bars which sell tapas during the day, and restaurants open at about 9pm in the evening. Most shops and restaurants observe the siesta which ranges from about 1.30pm to 5pm. At this time pretty much everything with the exception of tapas bars and ice-cream parlours are closed. We visited San Jose which is a fabulous little town up the coast from Almeria. This is slightly more tourist driven with small gift shops and bars. Thereeemed to be a few more Americans, British and German people here than in Almeria itself. The beach is better at San Jose as it was less crowded. We didn't visit Rocquetas De Mar, but from the plane trip out to Spain I got the impression that this is where most 'Brits' stay. From across the bay it appeared to be a lot of moderately high built, 6/7 storey apartments and you would probably find more English style bars and chip shops there. Overall I would recommend a trip to Almeria, but its worth bearing in mind that unless you hire a car many of the out of town attractions are difficult, if not impossible to visit. We used local taxi's and buses to get around with ease, but I think it could be difficult to fill a week in the city unless sunbathing is your thing. Almeria is a pretty, exceptionally clean and friendly city, with little English spoken - I would go back. I certainly got the impression that Almeria is a family friendly city, that is still in its infancy with regard to the tourist trade. Once thing I would finally add is that the airport is very small - when you fly out of Almeria Airport, eat at the small food area BEFORE you pass through security as there are no food outlets in the departure area.