Over 55s Spanish Holidays

Has anybody had experience of these holidays through John Gallagan travel ? Any reviews ? We are particularly interested in Costa de la Luz / Huelva areas. Any advice would be appreciated

My parents went on this last year to the Huelva area. Rained a lot when they were there but hotel and food was very good. Not much around the hotel itself

gilh said:

Has anybody had experience of these holidays through John Gallagan travel ? Any reviews ? We are particularly interested in Costa de la Luz / Huelva areas. Any advice would be appreciated

Click to expand...

Hi there,

check out this threads on Islantilla/Huelva...see if it helps.

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=134594&highlight=islantilla

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=24798&highlight=islantilla

Unless they have a car forget it.
Huelva is one of Spains least interesting/attractive cities. there's very little to do/see in the area around and that includes the coast between Huelva and Portugese frontier. Islantilla is the main resort on that stretch and is very very quiet and boring outside the high season.
Never think of islantilla as a Winter destination. Buncrana has more life in December.

But if its a great price and all they want is relaxation, Huelva in Winter is O.K. Good place to practise Spanish as there wont be many nonSpanish tourists around.
Winter on that stretch of Atlantic coast can be wet and windy.

The best thing about Huelva is the regular 90-minute bus ride to the wonderful city of Seville.

Old Nick is right, the place is inhabited by Spanish pensioners who receive their annual holidays free of charge during the off season. No disrespect meant, you would see hundreds of them in the local hotels; they have their own medical advisors; their own entertainment organizers etc. Perhaps we all should consider becoming Spanish nationals on our retirement. This is true of other resorts also.

Many 55s+ plus from UK and Ireland spend long term off season in Spain. They can rent at fairly low prices and eke out a fairly sunny existence there when we are enduring several kinds of wet and cold here.

I priced one of the destinations myself and found that I could match the price doing a DIY. If I remember correctly a couple of the destinations's hotels are a bit out of it.
In the end it was easier not to be limited and looked at other destinations outside the scheme.

http://rathgartravel.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/travel-to-spain-for-over-55/

How long are you thinking of going for? I had a look at the link and the hotel is not allocated until 14 days before you travel, so there's an element of pot luck involved. And what happens if you don't like the hotel, or the food provided by the hotel?

If you are thinking of going for an extended period, lots of privately owned apartments are available at a fraction of what they cost during the summer. You should look into this option before booking anything. At least that way, you would have some idea of whether or not the offer represents good value.

Actually i was thinking of booking one of those holidays in the hope of meeting a few single Spanish women aged about 60 who may fancy an affair with someone older and who had to the medical training to resucitate me afterwards.

But even the opportunity of aged swinger parties could not persuade this geriatric to spend any time on one of those "over-55" holidays (55? that's like 18-30 for me. over-55 means,really, 65 onwards).

As Homer suggests -Find an apartment (always check if iT has Sky of similar English speaking channels -very important at cooler off-season times when going out in the evening is not always appealing).
Also -what's the heating like ? Anywhere in the Med can be chilly in the Winter.

An apartment means you can eat what you like when you like. And as Soylent says, you can DIY at similar prices anywhere.

I shall quickly close this as I hear my wife hobbling towards me and I dont want her to read the opening sentence...

oldnick said:

Unless they have a car forget it.
Huelva is one of Spains least interesting/attractive cities. there's very little to do/see in the area around and that includes the coast between Huelva and Portugese frontier. Islantilla is the main resort on that stretch and is very very quiet and boring outside the high season.
Never think of islantilla as a Winter destination. Buncrana has more life in December.

But if its a great price and all they want is relaxation, Huelva in Winter is O.K. Good place to practise Spanish as there wont be many nonSpanish tourists around.
Winter on that stretch of Atlantic coast can be wet and windy.

The best thing about Huelva is the regular 90-minute bus ride to the wonderful city of Seville.

Click to expand...

you're spot-on again Oldnick...

This should maybe be put in a new thread but here goes. My hubby and I are currently in Fuengirola on a 55+ holiday break. Day 2 of our holiday, my handbag was stolen (money, cards, jewellery, the lot) and having reported it to the police, discovered that this is a regular occurence here. To my horror, apparently not even the hotel is safe - 2 occurences in the past week of handbags taken from the hotel restaurant, one man had wallet taken from buttoned pocket outside the hotel, another had wallet taken from leg pocket of shorts in the hotel lobby, a woman's bag was snatched by a 'she-person' who arrived at the hotel reception in a car, jumped out and snatched the bag. Police can't cope - the Spanish shrug is the response to all and any robberies.
DON'T COME TO FUENGIROLA IF YOU CAN HELP IT - I never will again, can't wait to get out of the place.

We went there on a day trip from another resort we were staying in and couldn't wait to get out of it either.
There are lots of more interesting and lovely places to go to in Spain.
Sorry to hear about what happened to you.