barcelo isla canela, ayamonte over 55s

Any experiences of this hotel and area please.

Have you ever used Tripadvisor to research your holiday destinations?

Yes had a look. Mixed reviews. Id like to hear from Irish people who travelled on the over 55s holidays in Oct.

I see half board is €583 for 6 nights if booking direct with Barcelo for the first week in October. How much is it under the 55s scheme?

My parents went earlier this year on the over 55s. They thought the hotel was very good - food plentiful and staff very helpful and had activities organised on various days. Only thing they found was that there wasn't much in the area around the hotel but there were some trips organised

Interestingly when I checked prices through www.hotelscomparison.com you can get the hotel cheaper than booking direct with Barcelo who offer a best price guarantee. I would suggest that you call in the guarantee as I did with another of their hotels in Majorca and I was upgraded to free drinks with my meals.

Thanks all for your comments

Regardless of the hotel -which also got mixed reviews from people I've sent there -the one thing everyone who has been to the area agrees on ..it is very quiet. To many of my clients it was really boring.
For semi research purposes -and because I got it free - I stayed a week there two years ago. Thank goodness I hired a car -otherwise I'd have gone mad.

Having said that, there are people who just want to sleep, read, stroll around - though not much to stroll around to in isla Canela - and maybe take a couple of organised day trips.
Incidentally isla Canela is a small concreete jungle a few miles and fifteen euro taxi return to Ayia Monte, an almost pleasant little town whence you can get the regular 10 minute ferry across to Portugal.

there was a thread on this area a few weeks ago. General consensus much the same as my waffle here.

How did you find the hotel -Food etc. ?

ParkLane said:

. How much is it under the 55s scheme?

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Gilh, Are you keeping this bit a secret?

I dont understand what you mean. Its €584 + 30. No secret. Can be seen on the senior's website

gilh said:

I dont understand what you mean. Its €584 + 30. No secret. Can be seen on the senior's website

Click to expand...

Maybe post a link to the senior's website?

It appears that it is more costly to book using the over 55's price than it is to booking direct or through the hotel discounters website? Is this correct or are there any extras included if you book through the over 55's and if so are they worth the price?

If any experiences of this hotel and area please.

dogdaycare said:

If any experiences of this hotel and area please.

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Oldnick above posted his experiences.

and

Gilh. Are you still going to the over 55's hotel?

The only reason why I ask this, is that I have just negotiated a very good deal on a two bedroomed apartment in Albufeira for early next year. Close to centre and beach. I know you are going in October but the owner of this apartment was very eager to do a price deal.

Five nights for €244 to include the obligatory cleaning fee. With flight prices looking a bit more attractive than they have been recently two of us should have a 5 night break for about €440. I know it's out of season but hey!....

There are 8 of us looking at the over 55s holidays but some problems with booking at the moment-- allocation at hotels for the over 55s package !!!
Thanks for your suggestion,

I don't know what's wrong with all of the Irish agents who are listed (and who also advertise) as agents for these 55+ offers. We've contacted every one of them and can't get a straight reply - we are interested in a 3 week stay in November. You'd think the agents would be ready to bite your hand for a bit of business at the moment, but we've found that either they're not responding at all or when they do, they have incorrect info (i.e. our chosen hotel was actually closed in November - 2 agents never bothered to check this out and went ahead and offered us a deal!). So it's buyer beware here - if they're not too keen on selling the offers, imagine how keen they will be to deliver customer service if there's a problem!!

This is only gossip via the travel agents network and may be factually incorrect -and is doubtless exaggerated - but...

..evidently ,although the Spanish Tourist Board has promoted this and advised agents that ,for example, hotelxyz, is part of the scheme it seems that hotel XYZ may no longer be part of the scheme ,or never wanted to, or may have decided that ,well, they'll add on a few pennies to the official price.

So, on the one hand, the agents have been given a clear list of hotels and prices by the authorities running/promoting the scheme -and then have found ,well, lets say, things ain't quite what they should be. I gather that "things are being sorted" at present.

What i dont understand is why those agents contacted by the previous poster did not offer something else. There are so many cheap deals over the Winter that can easily be booked at great prices at most places throughout the Winter. That is, to say to the clients - "look there is a problem with this programme at present ,but we have this and that "
-no wonder the public are increasingly doing their own thing .

I repeat (tocover myself). the above is only hearsay froma few agents and maybe I'm wrong and the over55 programme is going fantastically well.
The above posts suggest otherwise. However, i do believe that there's a bit of a sort-out going on and hopefully things will be O.K.