Just back from Fuengirola Beach hotel after staying there for a week. First things first, there is a lot of building work going on in the hotel that will last for another 5 weeks or so. Workmen start at 09.00 until 6pm working in the basement, drilling through concrete hammering etc. This work is to build a new dining room and can get a bit noisy particularly I would imagine if you are right above it. We were on the other side of the corridor and we could still hear it, even 2 floors up. The hotel is only about 300 metres or so from the main N340 coast road and the traffic on the road is constant. I have stayed here before but never really noticed the noise before. Its not too loud just a constant hum of cars bikes and lorries driving past.

We look onto the swimming pool and the entire block we stayed in gets no sun whatsoever, so not sitting on the balcony for me then enjoying the warmth. The other side does however get the sun the most of the day. The pool is excellent though cold and the general pool area is large plenty of seats and well kept grounds

Out and about the shopping centre with the large supermarket is great, Rooms howevr only have 2 rings, and a microwave. Utensil wise, 1 large pot, 1 small pot nad a frying pan, and a kettle and toaster. You can hire a remote for the TV for a refundable deposit of 10 euro. Not much in the way of UK channels, SKY news, BBC1, Cbeebies which becomes BBC4 at 8pm and CNBC

In the resort, plenty of cafes bars open during the day but many close at night as its still off season. Fish alley plenty of resraurants open, several doing good menu of the day offers froma bout 6 euro to about 9 euro. There were many others though charging a lot more.Overall though especially if you have children I think this could be very expensive for families. Snacks are about 3/4 euros, beer typically 2 euro, coffee 1.5 euro soft drinks about 1.5 euro. I beleive that the prices will increase in summer.

This is the 4th time I have been to Fuengirola in past 4 years and a good few palces have closed down. The strong euro has not helped and how the locals cope I do not know. In the shops many things seemed to be the same price as UK and for many things even more expensive than UK. Spain is definetley no longer the good value it used to be many years ago.

Will I go back again probably not, Spain has lost the charm it used to have and as I have said they are pricing themselves out of the market. I go to Turkey for my main holidays and this offers much better value, even though there prices have also increased dramitically over the years

Stewart