thanks very much - I read this thread before we went last year but couldn't find el Patio - we must have gone round with our eyes shut and I'll keep a look out this time.

Walk from the kids play area towards the gift/clothes shop and walk up the first little side street you come to and its there on the left, it is quite hard to spot until you are literally outside however don't be fooled because inside its huge with a very high ceiling. Play area to the restaurant is no more than 90 secs to 2 minutes so if its taken longer than this you have taken the wrong direction. Ask at any of the shops however and they will point you in the right area.

Thanks - that's probably why we didn't see it. I was wondering if you or anyone else who has contributed to this thread had any ideas on the following. We have to leave our first accommodation in alcossebre on Friday 15 August and can't move into our second place in Javea until Saturday 16 so we have to find somewhere between the 2 for 1 night (Friday 15) for 2 adults and 2 children (ie 1 room). Any ideas of where might nice to stay for 1 night and has anybody any recommendations? I was thinking Valencia but on the outskirts so we don't have to negotiate the traffic! Thanks for any advice, I shall carry on my research!

Have a look at Owners Direct - they have b&b's.

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/Spain-Costa-del-Azahar-gh.htm
Also:-

http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/Spain-Costa-Blanca-North-gh.htm

Pippa

that's a coincidence I was just looking at Owners Direct to see if there was anything available by the night when I noticed they had a whole sub-section for B and B's an guesthouses which I'd never noticed before despite visiting that site hundreds of times. thanks for taking the time to respond.

Melanie,

There are a couple of hotels in Las Fuentes that might let you have a 1 night stay prior to your journey south. Their names escape me at the moment however 1 is on the main coast road about 500 yards from the marina on the way to Alcossebre, try googling it. Also there is the Marina D'or complex at Oropesa a few miles down the coast which I believe has been developed into a large resort, one of my business customers in Cabanes close by, says it is very impressive and may offer 1 night stays.

thanks again - you're all very helpful on here. As it is we've lost the second week's accommodation because while I thought I was conversing about details and price with the villa company via email someone else was able to book it online so we missed out. I'm cross with myself.

Hi Melanie,

What a shame you have lost the villa for the second week. It certainly pays to deal with the owner direct.

We have just come back from Cumbre Del Sol which is between Moraira and Javea. It is stunning place with fantastic views if you have one of the high apartments. The apartment we had would have been fine for 2 adults and 2 children as it had 2 bedrooms although only 1 bathroom - but that is booked.

There are, though, many other apartments and villas in this area, especially on Owners Direct. I am sure you can find something. Moraira is lovely too - probably more there to occupy children as Cumbre is very, very quiet!!

Keep us informed.

Pippa

Hi Pippa, I've just been on and reserved a car with Car Jet, the people you used. Thing is, the promised confirmation e:mail has not been returned and the telephone is a spanish answering machine. No money has yet changed hands, I was just wondering what your experience was and how did you book them?

Hi Barnio,

I got a quote via email first and then once I had confirmed it I got the confirmation email which is what you take to the car rental desk. If you have set up an account with your email and password (which I think you have to) then you can access all your bookings on the site.

We took the option to pay on arrival so nothing was paid in advance anyway - that way if you need to cancel it is much easier.

Can tel me which website you used as car jet operate as carjet iberia and also as all inclusive car hire.com. Then I can see if it is the one I used.

Pippa

Hi Pippa,

Been very busy this weekend hence the delay in replying to you. I have phoned the UK office in Harlow this morning, they have my reservation and the E:mail service had had a "dicky fit" according to the call centre lady. Everything is confirmed, the agents are Solmar and I will be paying half the price of Hertz or Europcar. A fantastic deal in my eyes as long as everything goes smoothly.

Many thanks for your recommendation and input

Barnio

Glad you got it sorted out. Our car at Valencia was from Goldcar/Europa but I guess they use whatever is the cheapest on the day you book.

I'm sure you will have no problems - we have used Carjet several times and always had a good car.

Pippa

Got an E:mail from them saying they couldnt get me the car requested!! Went on Goldcars website direct and ended up with a good deal, its the last time I book through a broker. Funnily enough, I am a broker in transport and I always get the right deal for a client no matter what they spend with my company.

I suppose because we only ever want a small car there isn't likely to be a problem. Anyway it looks like you have it sorted now! In June Goldcar's office was a van in the car park at Valencia Airport because of work going on in the terminal building.

I will only book via a broker if I don't have to pay anything up front. This is since a holiday to Madeira when the broker who we booked the car with went bust before we went on holiday and did not pay the car rental company. We ended up having to pay for the car twice although because we used a credit card we got the money returned.

Hope you have a great time.

Pippa

Hi Pippa,

I'm sure we will have a great holiday, now its all sorted I can finally chill out and look forward to it. I've upgraded the car and still got a better deal than any of the "big names". Because of the bigger car I'm now taking my 2 oldest boys, 1 whose joining the army soon and the other who is just out of a relationship and needs some quality time with his family. Its turning into a major exercise but I'm looking forward to a nice time with plenty of family fun in a wonderfull part of Spain!!!

1 day to go and really looking forward to it now that I have just finished work weh heyyy!! Just had a call from the Villa owner who returned to the Uk yesterday and said it is in the mid to high thirties at the moment which is far better imo to the 18 degrees I've just had to suffer over here today in miserable old blighty!! He says there are loads more British people there at the minute taking advantage of the recent developments of villas/appts and a couple of hotels that you can book direct via the net.

So to the moderators, could you see a way to including the beautifull Costa Azahar on your review section so we can post on our return rather than having to post in the discussion forum. Not that I am relishing my return I hasten to add but would like to do a review in a fortnights time.

Here goes then,

Returned this morning on the very early Valencia - Liverpool Ryanair flight. Both outbound and inbound flights spot on time and used priority boarding which does work very well without the free for all Ryanair in the past.

Bravo Car Hire/Centauro were excellent. Yes there is a short courtesy bus ride to the off airport office but its only 2 minutes away and the bonus being on return this morning with it being so early, they give you a designated place in the airport mulit storey to drop off. Car was a 7 seat Citroen Picasso C4 Auto with 3000 km on the clock which had fantastic spec levels and superb fuel economy.

What a fantastic Villa (Finca). A lovingly restored property with all mod cons, air conditioning, 3 bedrooms, 1 en-suite, fitted kitchen, free view TV and lovely presented throughout. The gardens and pool area were fantastic, a truly tropical paradise in which to unwind and enjoy and a barbecue area which according to rumour is the finest private one in the whole area.

We were a car ride away from anywhere, however the Tropicana campsite was only 10 minutes away for a supermarket and Alcossebre was 10 minutes the other way, however I was genuinely shocked at how busy the place was in the height of summer. It seemed like half the populations of Madrid and Barcelona had decended on it making it horrendous to go shopping in the morning and indeed to park up in the evenings. Therefore I drove the extra few minutes down the road to shop in Consum in Alcala de Xivert each day where you could park for free in a quiet little town where the prices are reasonable.

Nothing more to report on restaurants (please see previous postings) however many of the prices have jumped considerably however El Patio Pizzeria has kept his prices low and consequently the place was always busy and the food fantastic as always.

A week would have suited me there as you are fairly isolated however the late night pool games and barbys were tremendous fun but I could have done with a decent taxi service to enable me to enjoy a glass or 2 of wine in a restaurant also. Police and Civil Guard are everywhere at this time of year. Roadside checks are set up anywhere and at any time, I would never be tempted to ever drink and drive EVER and anyone attempting it would be foolish as there is a zero tolerance to anyone found to have excess alcohol on their breath. I was told they are also checking for drugs, guns, proceeds of theft and illegals hence the frequency of the checks.

We shall return to this Villa and also to the other appt in Alcossebre but not in the height of summer (August).The place is far too busy and I much prefer early June when it is tranquil by comparison.

Hi barnio - we've just returned yesterday as well - but thankfully this time we had a more civilised flight time of 1.30 pm to east midlands - although it was delayed by an hour. we also had the added stress of listening to an english radio station which announced that the grand prix was taking place that weekend so we were expecting the traffic to grind to a halt as we neared the airport luckily that didn't happen. However we got lost - again - 3 times on the way to Valencia airport. We did this in March as well but we put that down to the fact that we were on the same early flight as you and it was dark. On both occasions we were travelling from the south (as we spent our second week in Javea) but it seems very confusing and we've never got lost before trying to find airports in spain. We had beautiful pizzas in both patio and mare nostrum and lovely tapas in Ximo and really enjoyed Alcossebre much more this year than last year. I think we felt a bit more at home as we knew our way around a bit more. However I agree with you that it was absolutely HEAVING and there were literally hundreds of people walking everywhere at every time of day or night. We always seemed to be going in the opposite direction though - we were goiing out for our evening meal as they were leaving the beach and we were leaving the beach as they were going on! One thing I did notice which did actually spoil it a bit was the number of flies which we really noticed when eating out. On our second week in Javea we didn't notice one.

Hi Melanie,

Glad you also had a good time, perhaps we were eating in El Patio at the same time without knowing!!! We were warned about the Grand Prix and told to leave an hour earlier however I bit the bullet and left at the time I'd arranged and hardly saw a car the whole way back to the airport on the A7.

Aw!! The flies!! We were hounded by them at the villa, however I put it down to the fact that we were in a rural area. Lit plenty of citronella candles day and night and kept a couple of cans of sparay at the ready with some swatters and it seemed to do the trick.

As regards to the Spanish, we went to the beach on our 3rd day at Les Fontes, arrived at 12.30 and it was packed out, never witnessed it before and was truly shocked. We found a space and settled down. At around 2-2.30pm however, there seemed to be a mass exodus as the Spanish went for siesta and the place became almost deserted, hence our next visits to the beach were later and never found space to be a problem.

Only one poor thing to report, ate at the Moulin Rouge bar on the front next to Bar Mambo on Wednesday lunchtime. Well I use the term "ate" loosley as the food was truly awfull. My wife was given a disgusting salad, the two boys with us had burnt burgers with black bread and chips that were still frozen and I was served a crepe with cardboard ham and cheese. I felt sorry for the poor waiter who was handling complaints left right and centre and suffice to say we made a gesture of payment and left pronto.