Teide Mar Apartments

2 readers found this review helpful

We have just returned from one week staying in the Teide Mar Hotel in the La Paz region of Puerto De La Cruz. At this time of year the weather is mostly overcast with sunny spells although we did have a couple of really nice hot and sunny days. Our apartment was very clean but basic with linen and towels being changed everyday except Wednesday/Friday as this was the maid's day off. The room was in need of modernisation and a lick of paint. We were situated at the very front of the hotel directly above the main entrance this unfortunately meant that we got no sun on the balcony at all and had to listen to the next door bar's entertainement until late everynight whether we liked it or not! As we had decided to go Self Catering this year we were a little disappointed with the cooking equipment, two ancient hobs, no oven and not even a kettle although there was a fridge. If you want to watch the TV in your room you must pay a 10Euro deposit for the remote control and 4 Euros per day, but there was only one British channel BBC News and CNN all the other channels were in German or Spanish.
There were plenty of lovely bars and restaurants to go to in the main town and just along from the hotel. The Italian restaurant just next to the City Bar was particularly good! We ate out every day, this is not cheap! we were only getting $1.22 to the £ at the time. Be warned if you are coming from Scotland the Bureau de Change will not accept Scottish notes only English ones, this is not the first time this has occurred and is incredibly annoying, after all it is legal tender the same as any other currency!!
We loved the area and although La Paz was quite quiet is was a short taxi ride for about 3 Euros to the harbour or a decent walk to the main square but quite a climb on the way back! There are lots of lovely little side streets and gardens with nice fountains and water features, it was nice not to get hussled by street traders either. Most of the shops sell the usual tourist tat but there are one or two more upmarket shops selling tax free perfume, watches and mobile phone there is also a nice modern shopping centre.
The local people were very friendly mostly Spanish/Portugese and if you made the effort with the language they were more than happy to help. The only down side to the whole place was as usual the huge influx of Germans!! very rude, miserable and aggressive they have taken over the whole area buying up a lot of properties and apartments. A large percentage of Puerto bars and restaurants are German owned and run and very much geared up for the Krauts!!
We visited the local Botanical Gardens which is well worth a visit for 3Euros each very pretty and a nice place to walk around and relax at your leisure. The Loro Parc is also heavily promoted - a large modern zoo which runs a free mini train service from the harbour everyday.
We would visit Puerto again but perhaps try a different hotel, one week was enough, I think after two weeks we would have been bored and poor!! but it was a lovely area and very relaxing, the pool at the hotel was also very nice as was the bar and all the staff.