The Gran Canaria Princess Hotel, Playa del Ingles, Gran Canaria

We travelled to Gran Canaria in October, staying at the 4 star Gran Canaria Princess Hotel in the resort of Playa del Ingles. We booked our holiday through EasyJet Holidays, travelling to Las Palmas from Southend Airport. We are the type of people who always book our main beach or larger long haul city breaks way in advance and like most tour operators, EasyJet allow you to make a deposit payment and then pay the balance by a given date, normally 8-10 weeks prior to departure. It certainly spreads the cost and made the £1900 cost a little more palatable ! Travelling from Southend was a little different for us too as we normally fly from one of the big three in the south - see our separate blog on travelling from Southend Airport.

Pool Area

We were allocated a room on the first floor, with our balcony overlooking the car park area. We had a double room with separate comfy chairs and a coffee table, the usual desk and chair and a large double wardrobe.

There was plenty of floor space to put our empty cases once we had unpacked and there was a decent number of plug sockets. Annoyingly there was a charger socket for my phone on my side of the bed but not on hubby's side so he had to charge his phone and ipad on the table opposite the bed. Not a big deal but annoying if you want to read in bed and charge it at the same time. The rooms also had air conditioning (or heat) free of charge, together with a flat screen TV.

There was a small safe inside of the wardrobe, a small fridge (not a mini bar, fridge was empty) and a kettle, glasses and cups/spoons. You got a few tea bags and coffee sachets to start you off and these were replenished when your room was cleaned (which was daily unless you put the card on the door indicating otherwise). The outside balcony was quite large but did have the usual large AC unit outside. There was no option to hang towels, no clothes rail as you would normally expect to find although I guess this is to discourage you from rinsing through your bathing things and using their laundry facilities instead. I have to say the rooms were cleaned well and the staff were friendly and polite.

The bathroom had a large walk in shower, nice marble set sink, decent mirror and light and a loo. Toilet roll was replenished as required and fresh towels (2 each) were available. These too were changed every time your room was cleaned. You were also given a free beach towel each which you could use at the pool or take to the beach - I believe these are changed every couple of days and you just leave them in the shower on the floor as you normally would if you want a towel change. There were a few free toiletries (minis) and a shower cap. Just enough really to get you through the first day. The shower, although powerful, was a real fail for me as it ran normally then went to boiling hot before returning to normal which had me jumping in and out of the water numerous times during a shower so as not to get burnt. I guess this is a common thing in larger hotels but just something to be mindful of. Luckily this is an adults only hotel!

The hotel itself is pretty big, spread over several floors, with a basement area hosting the restaurant, which has both indoor and outdoor dining, a hair salon, beauty salon, bookshelf if you want to borrow a book and toilets.

Hair Salon

The ground floor hosts the main reception and bar area and has two shops selling everything you could possibly need from smellies, beach wear, gifts, sweet treats and more. From the bar area you can walk out into the large pool area. As usual this was fairly packed with people even straight after breakfast, hogging the sunbeds near the pool and in the sun. By the time we wandered down after breakfast one morning all that was left was a few beds outside the loo which was not ideal! To be honest you are about a 10-15 minute walk down to an absolutely HUGE beach which runs for miles so it always amazes me that people rush to the pool. Maybe I'm the exception here but if you have a huge beach and the whole ocean to swim in, why would you sit side by side with a complete stranger around a crowded pool ? I guess because this hotel caters for the all inclusive crowd and once you get your wristband everything is free so why go anywhere else!

I have to say that at busy times the lifts are to be avoided; there are two lifts that service all of the floors and during the morning and evening rush for the restaurant it is almost impossible to get a lift! We used the stairs most of the time - not an issue as we were on a lower floor but this would be a pain if you had mobility issues and needed to use the lift due to being on a slightly higher floor.

We actually opted for half board - something we haven't done for years! and now I realise why I dislike it so much. Going down for breakfast each day is fine - there is a great selection of breakfast items both cooked and cold, meats, eggs, cereals, beautiful fresh fruit, lovely selection of breads and rolls, porridge etc. Coffee and juice machines are free and although a little watered down, it is fine. We went out for lunch each day choosing to eat at one of the beach front restaurants and actually found the food to be much nicer than that provided at the hotel. We ate dinner in the evening at the hotel about 7 times out of the 10 nights we stayed for and increasingly found it difficult to find things we liked. I think I lived on salad and chips ! Every dessert was mass produced and tasted of very little despite their intense colours. It was a shame really but lesson learned, next time go self catering!

Fruit Table

Hot Breakfast Buffet

I also felt that this hotel was really focused on the all inclusive crowd and as a half boarder I felt like the poor relative. At dinner you had to pay for your drinks, even water or a coke - none of the machines were available to you and you had to ask a waiter to bring you a drink and then pay when you left. There is actually a huge sign at the bar saying 'All Inclusive Only'. Getting the attention of a waiter was near on impossible and on one occasion I actually took my own water with me so that I could take my tablet medication with my food. Pretty important as a diabetic. Obviously the pool bars, restaurant (at lunchtime) etc were not free for us either and we were even stopped a few times at dinner time as we were not given a wristband and had to produce our room card to prove we were staying at the hotel.

Playa del Ingles itself for me was a little odd. I am used to holidaying in Greece where you can generally walk down to the beach in 5 minutes, have beach bar food for lunch and then wander up the 'strip' and choose a restaurant of your fancy for dinner. You get great hospitality and an abundance of local dishes to choose from. In Playa del Ingles you really did have to either eat at your hotel or walk down to the beach and choose one of the restaurants down there. They were nice enough, and as I say, served much nicer and fresher food than we got at the hotel, but it was pretty much a residential area all the way down to the beach. It is really quite the concrete jungle! There were a few bars along the way, the odd cafe or supermarket, the 'shopping centres' of Playa del Ingles which offer a little more than shops and restaurants (!!) and a few restaurants here and there. We found this a little limiting and it kind of put me off of returning to this resort. A few years ago we stayed in Porto Rico a little way around the coast and found this to be a much more charming albeit smaller resort and more in keeping with what we like. Each to their own I guess but in 10 days we did not eat a paella or enjoy Tapas which is a little odd - traditional Spanish food just didn't seem to be on the menu here !

Greek Pork Souvlaki - in Playa del Ingles !

To mix up our rather poor culinary experience we visited a fabulous Greek restaurant, situated just a short walk from our hotel. Its a kind of blink and you'll miss it kind of place as we probably walked passed it a few times! Here we found amazing authentic Greek food and we had a lovely evening meal here - probably the best one of the holiday and brilliant value for money. See my separate blog on the Greek Village restaurant in Playa del Ingles.

+34 928 773 664;

info@greek-village.com

The beach and beach front area at Playa del Ingles in vast. The dunes stretch for miles and we actually walked from the beginning of the beach front area, all the way along the beach and around the dunes up to the lighthouse at Maspalomas. It was a very long walk on sand and I insisted on a taxi back to the hotel! The beach is really clean, the waters lovely and clear and there are plenty of restaurants, gift shops etc on the beach front. There is even a small McDonalds and on the other side of the car park there is a Hard Rock Cafe. The beach is kind of split into different areas - there are huge swathes of family areas with some nudist areas and one area where the Pride flag is flown. If you want to avoid seeing any of this then I would suggest you stick to the family areas. There are snack areas and toilet facilities on the beach, you can hire sunbeds in most of the different areas although they do go quickly. The dunes themselves are out of bounds and are a protected area so are roped off and they are actually patrolled to stop trespassers.

The weather in October is advertised generally as being 25-30 degrees, however we found the average in early October was nearer 20-25 and some days were cloudy. The cost is obviously lower than in high season and you could stay all inclusive for much cheaper than you would say in July, however the weather is hit and miss. We did have one really windy day and one where it poured with rain (typically that was the day we paid for a sunbed on the beach!). We ended up having lunch and I did our gift shopping in the rain whilst hubby got a tattoo!

Getting around the island from Playa del Ingles is pretty straight forward. Just outside the gates of the hotel there are bus stops on either side of the road. One way takes you round to Porto Rico, Maspalomas and beyond, whilst the other way takes you up the island to Las Palmas. A bus ticket is around 5 euros each so much cheaper than a taxi and honestly, as someone who gets travel sick in two seconds, it was actually fine. We took the bus a couple of times, venturing out to another resort and also up to the capital Las Palmas for the day. There is also a free shuttle you can pick up that will take you to the shopping village, ideal for a cloudy or rainy day. No need to book, just wait at the bus stop.

So, what would my verdict be of Playa del Ingles and the Gran Canaria Princess? Well in all honesty I would probably not visit again, having visited a smaller resort a few years ago and having also been to the capital (and on a Viator tour around the island - see my separate blog on the tour), I feel like Gran Canaria is now done for me. I found the shopping areas and the beach front shops and restaurants to be a little run down although the beach itself is as good as you would find on any Caribbean island. I think it we had chosen to stay in a self catering apartment we would have enjoyed our stay much more, as the main menu items like fish and meat were often quite niche or strange combinations.

As a last note, and I am by no means judging ANYONE, but I feel it does need a mention here. If you are heading to Gran Canaria and to Playa del Ingles in particular please be mindful that it is a very broad minded area with Playa del Ingles being (apparently) the swingers capital of Europe, with Pride festivals held twice yearly, with numerous swinger clubs, drag clubs, a cinema, fetish clothing stores and the like. For me personally Maspalomas felt a little more of an up market resort and Porto Rico was more authentic, built on a hillside overlooking a bay with shops and restaurants and probably much more suited to families than Playa del Ingles. However, if you are looking for that type of fun, then let your hair down and enjoy yourselves !

Happy Travels .......

Tracey (and hubby Les) xx

Why not have a read of our other blogs or watch our videos detailing our travels across Europe, America and beyond at georgialouisetravels on Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok.