Riu Belplaya – Torremolinos, Spain Review

Gemma and I have recently come back from what was probably the most chilled out holiday we have ever been on.

We booked a holiday a month or so ago as we came into a tiny bit of cash and decided the best way to spend it was on a week somewhere hot! So we ventured into town (after an unsuccessful hunt on the net the night before) and walked in to a few travel agents, who scoured their 1970’s style computer systems trying to find us something that was within our budget and somewhere HOT! 🙂

A few places sprung up, but all slightly over budget! Boo! Then in the Thomson shop a nice lady found us a holiday that was a bit too expencive, but she said the hotels had a brilliant reputation and that it would be worth spending the extra few pounds!

The hotel was called the Riu Belylaya and it was plonked right on the beach in Torremolinos, Spain. We checked the weather reports daily as we were more bothered about it being hot than anything else! The weather looked ok, kinda, better than britain anyway – so we packed our things and headed to the airport.

Our thomson flight was kinda average, not much legroom, a baby crying somewhere and plenty of turbulence. And we arrived quite late at night to a flooded dark spain. Oh dear! The rep said that they had received record rain fall and that cars had been washed down some streets. 🙁

We got on our bus to the hotel, and were told we would be the first drop off from the airport! Alright!! We arrived, and gemma, myself and a few old couples got off the bus and got our luggage. Wow. What a hotel!

I have always stayed in nice hotels when i have gone away, but this one was really nice! We were greeted by very friendly multi lingual receptionists who offered us champagne or orange juice on arrival (i bet you can guess what gemma chose 😉 ) and quickly located us and booked us into room 715. We took the lift, walked along the corridor and entered our large double room.

It was a beaut, nice (fairly small) bathroom with bath, shower, sink, toilet and bidet! We had two single beds pushed together, but on them they made a really nice display of two swans kissing out of bath towels – we had told them it was kinda a anniversary holiday you see 😉

When we booked we were told we would have limited sea view. I think they say limited to cover their backs as one or two rooms don’t have a view, but ours was awesome! Although it wasn’t until morning that we actually saw how awesome our view was!.

The next day was a bit grotty, the weather was picking up after being very rainy, but it did seem to be getting better, and it was still hot enough to sit on the beach and make sand castles!

From here on, the weather just got better and better, a few of the days were in fact scorchio! We spent one of these days on the beach all day – i got a tad burnt unfortunatly!

The hotel itsself continued to go from strength to strength too, the food was really nice, the staff were all wonderful and the rest of the hotels occupants were old people on a bowls holiday so we got 2 pools, a gym and all the sun loungers to ourself too! It was – at times – like we had the place to ourselves!

The only downside to the hotel (in my opinion) is the lack of english TV channels! I know that we shouldnt be in wathcing TV on holiday but it was nice to put it on when we were waiting for our fat bellies to go down after eatinc 6 course dinners haha.

Gemma was very brave a few days into the holiday, she actually ventured into the sea! Well done gemma!!

We were both playing in the sea that day, but we both chickened out after we found a dead jellyfish washed up on the beach! We really didnt do much else apart from ate, slept and sunbathed. I went swimming quite a bit, and went in the gym ONCE. Oh, and gemma had a massage as they had a treatments room next to the indoor pool.

All in all, it was an awesome holiday and i would reccomend the hotel to anyone!

The weather in spain in november was a lot better than we thought it would be, we had expected drizzle and been blessed with scorching sunshine!

The Riu Belplaya has to be one of the best hotels in torremolinos, if not in the whole of spain!

10/10!