Do your own cooking, cleaning and washing-up, or sit back in comfort and let someone else take charge?The decision isn't as straightforward as it seems. There are also questions of cost and quality to consider.
Peak perfection: The Costa Del Sol has some splendid sections. But where to stay?
Most people have a sneaking feeling that good-quality holiday villa rentals can work out much more expensive than equivalent-standard hotels. But there's also the matter of convenience. If you opt for self-catering, you are freed from the arbitrary times selected by hotels for breakfast, lunch and dinner – and the often eye-watering prices they charge for meals and drinks.
The self-catering option is particularly attractive if you have young children who are liable to misbehave in public and cause embarrassment. In a villa, you can always keep them entertained with a favourite DVD or read them a story.
To test the competing attractions of villas and hotels, I paid £344 for return air fares for two people to Malaga in Spain and put the Costa del Sol to the test.
Marbella is currently enjoying a new lease of life, boosted by the cast of the ITV series The Only Way Is Essex, for whom 'Marbs' is their natural European outpost.
You don't have to be an Essex girl to appreciate the charms of this part of the Costa del Sol, which offers a level of holiday quality and sophistication that other parts of the Med can only dream of matching.
All villa, no filler: Frank found a type of holiday heaven at the Oasis Club complex...
The Villa
The stretch of the Marbella coast that lies to the west towards Puerto Banus is known as the Golden Mile for the plushness of its villas and hotels, including the famously glitzy Marbella Club, rather than any similarity to the Blackpool promenade.
For my villa search, I looked on the HomeAway Holiday-Rentals website (www.holiday-rentals.co.uk), which claims to be the UK leader, with more than 210,000 properties around the world.
Immediately, three beachside villas looked attractive. All were handily next to the beach and all well-placed for the El Corte Ingles supermarket and other amenities.
When you are looking for a self-catering place on the internet, you need to choose carefully – you need to know where you want to be based beforehand and what you can expect for your money.
You can find reasonable places from under £1,000 a week but if you want somewhere more comfortable and stylish, expect to pay more than £2,000 per week. This may seem expensive but, as we will see, the price compares favourably with high-standard hotels.
We opted for a three-bedroom villa (all bedrooms were en suite) within the Oasis Club complex. The property not only had a private plunge pool but also shared a large community pool, and was just yards from the Mediterranean. From the upstairs sundeck on a clear day, we could see all the way to Gibraltar and the North African coast.
The complex used to be well-known locally as the former site of the Toni Dalli restaurant. The villa has just been completely refurbished and boasts a wi-fi connection and flat-screen TV with all UK terrestrial channels. This is my idea of holiday heaven: a read, a dip in the pool, catch up with the TV news, a glass of Cava, a read, a dip in the pool – repeat ad nauseam.
What I liked most was independence: we were not obliged to eat out the whole time, though I accept this suited me a lot better than Mrs Barrett, who does the cooking.
For further information on this villa, visit www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p424627. Prices range from £2,593 a week to £3,450 depending on season.
...but found that the luxury Kempinski Hotel Bahia in Estepona offered surprising value
The Hotel
If you didn't know better, the views from the Kempinski Hotel Bahia in Estepona could easily be of the Caribbean or somewhere in the Indian Ocean. This is a super-stylish property offering the sort of facilities and service you would normally associate with a flash long-haul resort.
From the ultra-grand lobby with its colourful artworks, including ceramics and paintings, to the plush bedrooms (which all have a sea view, though in some it is more of a glimpse than a view), you know you are in a top-grade hotel.
It comes with all the comforts you would expect: three separate pools plus one indoor pool; a gym; a health spa; one of the finest buffet breakfasts anywhere; and, of course, extremely comfortable rooms.
There were also lots of affordable eating places nearby in Estepona and at the nearby Laguna Village mall. This was sheer relaxation: no cooking, cleaning, bed-making or washing-up – you are simply waited on hand and foot.
Prestige Holidays (01425 480400 www.prestigeholidays.co.uk) offers seven nights at the Kempinski Hotel Bahia from £1,165pp in October, including accommodation on a bed-and-breakfast basis, return flights from Gatwick to Malaga with British Airways and private taxi transfers. This price includes an early-booking offer, saving £164 per couple.
0 comments:
Post a Comment