Villa La Manga Hotel

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So - the place is huge. It is made up of about 15 "communities" - these are groups of houses/villas or apartments - each community is different in size, so ours - Montemares - was only 15 villas. I have attached photos of it. It was very luxurious - way better than I had expected.

La Manga club is spread across a wide area - you enter it on a road off the motorway from Alicante - it does take a good hour plus from the airport. As you drive in there is La Manga on one side of the road and Las Lomas opposite.

Las Lomas is up a very steep hill - you go past the hotel that has the spa etc. The spa area is very nice, about 15 euros per person to use all the water rooms etc - a massage is expensive at 90 euros for an hour. There is a gym next to the spa but there is also one in the tennis centre - I preferred the one in the tennis centre (the tennis centre is on the La Manga side). It cost 20 euros to use the gym but you can buy a 7 entry card that has a discount and any of you can use those entries.

Las Lomas village reminded me of the village from the original Prisoner series - small cobbled roads with 2/3 storey buildings. In Las Lomas Village there is a large communal pool - nicely done. I don't know what sunbed charges are there but they were 10 euros a day in the communal pool on the La Manga side which is also right by the tennis centre. Lots of people just used the grass or bought lilos and covered them with their towels to save money. There are also about 4 restaurants that side - we loved Luigi's, Italian and very good - but - eating out everywhere is expensive - for 4 of us it was generally about 140 euros allowing starter, mains and a few drinks. There is also a chinese restuarant that we didn't try.

From what I could see, all the sports facilities are the La Manga side - now this is not a walk away, well it would be if it was flat but the site is really really hilly. There is a bus you can call to take you round the site - you will see there are bus stops all over the place. You find the one nearest to you and you call reception and ask them to send the bus to you to take you where you want to go - this seemed to operate right up to late at night as we used it to get to and from Luigi's etc. You can't book it - you simply call it when you want it and if you are at a venue and want it to take you back, the venue will call it for you. No-one told us about this and it took us 5 days to find out.

So - in La Manga there is the tennis centre and the golf place. There are 2 lots of shops, one near the tennis centre, the other in Bellaluz square. the best supermarket is the one near the tennis centre - it has everything you need including fresh meat, veg etc. It is very spanish so there are few british brands - if you particularly want british stuff like Heinz ketchup etc, the smaller supermarket in Bellaluz Square does all that stuff.
There is also a petrol station, pharmacies, banks, a few dress shops etc - again either near the tennis centre or in Bellaluz Square.

The football academy is up the road from both La Manga and Las Lomas.

Restuarants on the La Manga side - the Bistro in Bellaluz Square, OK, nothing fantastic but we ate there about 3/4 times, Tom's Pizza, also in Bellaluz Square - looks like a takeaway but there is a seated restaurant, didn't eat there but walked past it a few times and it always was busy. There is also a tex mex and a tapas place - again didn't try them. We did try Casa Victor, looks lovely but massive rip off, avoid at all costs.

Finally for restaurants on site - there is a lovely little cove you get to down a dirt track road down a very steep cliff. It feels like you will never get there - but you do. There is a restaurant right on the beach - lovely, it is called La Cala. It is very popular, needs booking a couple of days in advance - it is very expensive.
So, overall - La Manga, quite big and hard to navigate. I think it is quite expensive and eating out was quite a bother unless you wanted to be driving all the time which I did not! I think the sports fees are probably what you would expect.