Adults-only hotels in Spain

In Spain the problem is not finding a beautiful hotel: it is finding a hotel where at five in the afternoon the pool is not the centre of a playground. The Spanish islands and the big seaside coasts have always worked with families, and inside a resort of hundreds of rooms the rhythm is set by whoever is more numerous. That is why the property is chosen before you leave, not negotiated at the front desk. In our catalogue Spain counts 30 properties, checked one by one by hand, and they are not scattered at random: they concentrate in three basins, the Canaries, the Balearics and the coasts of the mainland, from Andalusia to the Costa Brava.

Where the thirty properties concentrate

The Atlantic block is the Canaries. On Tenerife our checks cover Adeje and Playa de las Américas, on the southern side, and Puerto de la Cruz on the north of the island, which has quite another character. On Gran Canaria you go down towards the dunes of the south between Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés and Puerto Rico de Gran Canaria, while Las Palmas de Gran Canaria remains the choice for anyone wanting a real city around the hotel. On Lanzarote we work on Puerto del Carmen, Costa Teguise and the marina of Puerto Calero; on Fuerteventura on Corralejo, at the northern tip of the island.

The second block is the Balearics. On Mallorca the addresses are spread between the bay of Palma, with Can Pastilla, Playa de Palma and El Arenal, the south-western coast of Palmanova and Santa Ponsa, the north of Port d'Alcudia and the east of Cala Millor, Cala Ratjada and Cala d'Or. On Ibiza we have Playa d'en Bossa and Sant Antoni de Portmany, that is the island as its reputation tells it, and then Santa Eulària des Riu and Sant Joan de Labritja, which are the exact opposite: countryside, compact coves, roads through the hills. On Menorca the reference is Ciutadella de Menorca, in the western part of the island.

On the mainland the presence is more selective. In Andalusia we are on the Costa del Sol, between Marbella, Torremolinos and Nerja, three places on the same coast that do not have the same public. Further north there are Benidorm, on the Costa Blanca, and Lloret de Mar, on the Catalan Costa Brava.

Fully adults only, or only the wellness area

This is the distinction no big portal knows how to show, and it is why we exist. In Spain the "adults only" arrangement is used in at least two ways. There is the hotel where minors enter no area, and there is the hotel that welcomes families but reserves a precise zone for adults, almost always the spa, sometimes a wing or a pool. Booking and Expedia do not distinguish the two cases with a filter, so the only way to know is to read the conditions line by line. We do it before publishing, and the result goes plainly onto the page.

It applies to the age too, which is where the word "adults" becomes elastic. Of the 30 Spanish properties, 25 set the threshold at 18: no one under age, at any time. Another 4 stop at 16 and one alone goes down to 12. It is not a theoretical difference: a hotel with a threshold of 12 is not a hotel without youngsters, it is a hotel without small children, and the breakfast room proves it. We would rather say so than let you discover it on the spot: the minimum age is written in words on every property's page, not hidden in the conditions.

Spas are a separate matter. Half the Spanish catalogue, 30 properties out of 30, has a spa reserved for adults: sauna, steam room and relaxation area stay out of reach of the youngest even when the rest of the hotel does not. It is a category worth filtering on upstream, because it is exactly where a couple's holiday stakes its reputation.

Different islands, different holidays

Anyone who knows only one seaside Spain tends to consider them interchangeable, and they are the opposite. The Canaries are an Atlantic archipelago off the African coast, with a climate that knows no real winter: it is the only Spanish destination where a week by the sea in January makes sense. The south of Tenerife and of Gran Canaria is sunny and built up, the north of Tenerife is greener and far more Spanish in its manners. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura play yet another card: volcanic landscape, wind, wide spaces.

The Balearics are pure Mediterranean, with a shorter, more intense season. Mallorca is big enough to hold everything, the very busy bay of Palma and the far more composed east of coves. Ibiza divides between the coast of the clubs and the rural interior of the north, Menorca is the quietest of the three. On the mainland, Andalusia adds what the islands do not have: art cities within a day's reach and the cooking of the land.

When to go, island by island

In the Canaries the question changes shape: the strong season is winter, when northern Europe escapes the cold, and the end-of-year holiday months are the most contested. The quietest weeks tend to be those of May, June and the first half of November, with water and sun available all the same.

In the Balearics and on the mainland coasts the calendar is the classic Mediterranean one. July and August concentrate the Spanish and northern European school holidays, and they are the months when the presence of families is at its highest outside the hotel too, on the beaches and in the restaurants. May, June, September and the first half of October offer the same sea with far fewer people around and more reasonable rates. An honest warning: out of season, in the Balearics, some of the hotels and services close, so it is worth checking the opening dates before fixing your dates. In Andalusia spring and autumn are the best periods of all, because they let you alternate the sea with trips inland without the full heat of August.

Thirty addresses are the Spanish properties we have read, compared and classified, with the declared restriction, the minimum age and the spa situation written where you see them at once. The rest of the work, choosing between an Atlantic island and a Mediterranean one, is up to you.