Tenerife was particularly badly affected as there would have been around 1500 stranded Futura passengers on Friday, as well as those flying XL.

Out of interest, did you stay in PDLA? If so, how busy was it? I was there in April and will hopefully be heading back next month.

hi steview la americas wasnt really that busy to be honest.The airport was really busy on the 5th sept when we arrived but once in the resort it was quite quiet.The sunday market in los cristianos was heaving as usual, but walking out and about and the beaches were all pretty quiet.The weather was excellent.Forcasts tell you its going to be cloudy all week .We had 3 cloudy days but it was 28degrees at same time.We had heavy rain 2 nights but at 3am and the next day things were much less humid.All in all the weather was great if maybe too hot at night time.

just got back yestarday from pdla, it was not busy at all to what it should be, so there is a lot of compition from pr's to get you in to drink and eat, i found them to be more firm aswell this time around, a straight "No" did not work at most places we walked past. at one place i walked past i told them i had already eaten (we had aswell)he called us a lair!!!

We will be in Tenerife for Christmas & New Year staying at Club la Costa Monterey. I was just wondering what the prices were like in the shops and restaurants. The reason being, that we have just returned from a week in Spain staying in the Costa Mijas region of the Costa del Sol and we found the prices had risen dramatically since last May 2007. We are not tight and eat out every evening, but found the price hike noticeable. Obviously if you are prepared to shop around you will find cheaper places, but when you are only there for a week it is too time consuming.

I expect this will have an affect on people holidaying there in the future as people who visited this year will not be too keen to go back next. Spain now has raging inflation and with the poor rate to the Euro it is no longer a cheaper alternative to the UK. We are lucky in that our children have grown up - I hate to think how expensive it will be for a family.

Have hired a car from Record Rent A Car for £208.73 (264.01 Euros) - Ford Fiesta type. Thought this price was quite good for 18 days. We originally had a quote from Do You Spain for £218.47 and when I tried to book yesterday, it had gone up by £100! We used Record for our recent trip to Spain and have used them before and found them as good as any of the others.

On the subject of XL - we were booked to flight out with them on 19th Dec for two weeks and obviously lost the flights. Luckily managed to re-book with Easyjet at 7.30am in the morning of the collapse for £861.57 (for two) - staying for 18 days instead of 14. I count myself lucky to have got these as the prices escalated sharply in the following hours. I am now in the process of getting my money rerfunded by my credit card company. What a nightmare for all the people who were overseas. Have also flown with Futura to Tenerife in the past.

I expect this will have an affect on people holidaying there in the future as people who visited this year will not be too keen to go back next. Spain now has raging inflation

I don't know where you got the idea from that Spain has a raging inflation rate.(raging as in rising and out of control ?)
According to Spain's National Statistics Institute, Spain's EU harmonised inflation fell to a widely expected 4.6 percent in September from 4.9 percent in August.
When the price of a barrel of oil hit records high, Spain's inflation rate was higher than the rest of the Euro zone, but it has now dropped back and is expected to fall further to 3.8 by the end of the year.

Chose where you go in the Euro Zone with Sterling currency, you will noticed that your money doesn't go as far as in previous years, but I visit the Costa del Sol regularly and I can't say I've seen any noticeable hike that's been passed down to the tourists"¦"¦ nothing that wouldn't have occurred with or without the poor exchange rate....the odd 10, 20 or 50 centimos here and there.
Two cups of coffee cost me €2.40, up 20 centimos from previous years, but considering the price of a bottle of milk has increase by 28%, this is to be expected.
In the Costa Blanca those same coffee's cost me €2.20, but if I decided to have 2 coffee's in Puerto Banus or Marbella opposite the millionaire yachts, then those coffee's would cost €6 or €7.

The prices in Tenerife will be similar (if not higher) to mainland Spain, what is not grown on the Island is imported in from mainland Spain and prices will be in line with the rest of the country, in fact earlier this year inflation was running higher in the Canary Islands at 4.9%, mainland Spain 4.4%, Balearics 4%....when I talk about inflation, I'm referring to basic stuff like food, fuel, leisure activities and energy prices.
Although Tenerife historically was given tax concessions by (I think) Franco because of the distance from Mainland Spain, this will not protect it where basic essentials are concerned and don't forget that the big supermarkets like Mercadona in the south of the Island have a monopoly....... but like you say, you didn't shop around........and now IS the time to shop around.

Sanjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

An excellent overview of the Spanish Financial situation Sanji, recently returned from a short break in Madrid, with the exception of being ripped off once prices were not that bad we perhaps should be aware of price differentials between different types of outlets in Spain really no different to the UK, the prices in Madrid for coffee compared to the Costa's Sanji describes.

Dave.

Will hopefully be off to Tenerife this Friday (haven't booked yet). On the subject of food and drink prices, are the bars/cafes still offering pints of Beer for a Euro during the day? I remember staggering down to the sea front back in April, having a full english breakfast and a pint for a total of 3 Euro. Perfect way to avoid a hangover, keep on drinking

you will be lucky to find a bar that will sell it to you for 2 euro a pint these days

There are still plenty of bars selling beer for 2 euros a pint or even less, you just have to look.

Are we talking during the day or at night? Most of the bars we stopped at during the day were only serving a pint for a Euro before 6pm, then up to 3-4 Euro after that. I'd be amazed if they've doubled their prices over a period of half a year. Granted we did stay in the Fanabe region, whereas this time we'd be staying closer to the centre of PDLA.

I can only speak for Los Cristianos because I live near to it but I can find plenty of bars selling beer for 2 euro or under, day & night. In fact, I'm going out to one of them in a minute. The point is that if you're looking for bars selling drinks at these sort of prices, don't expect entertainment etc. Those bars will almost certainly be dearer but if it's just the drink you're interested in you can find them. I would never pay more than 3-4 euro for a drink, with or without entertainment. Of course, there are plenty of bars that will charge 6-7 euro a drink but you won't ever catch me in them! It just depends on what you're looking for.