My First Trip To Benidorm
I think we’re all aware of the reputation Benidorm has, a cheap, cheesy, boozed up Brits abroad type place.
Table Of Content
I’ve heard people call it ‘Blackpool in the sun’ we’ve all seen the comedy series Benidorm which shows off a typical working class British holiday takeover.
For me, I chose to spend my 37th Birthday in Benidorm, I was looking for a way to celebrate it and decided on a long weekend away, I spent a few hours looking at UK places like York, London, Newcastle but all ended up being pricey when you start to include travel, hotels, spending money etc…
I’ve seen on TikTok people go abroad for the day on cheap last minute Ryanair flights, so my booking.com search for a UK break turned into Ryanair search for something overseas and I was massively shocked to see some flights to Alicante for as little as £26.99! Madness!
We decided we’d give it a whirl, through Love Holidays we found a return flight to Manchester (with legroom because Im 6ft 4) hotel AND transfers for 4 nights for £260 per person! Would have literally paid that to stay in the UK!
First Impressions of Benidorm
Our flight from Manchester was a fairly late one, we arrived at Alicante airport around 1am UK time (2am Spanish) and after an hour transfer we pulled up at our hotel, Hotel Perla.
We chose Hotel Perla because it was right in the centre of Benidorm, this wasn’t going to be a holiday or a lounging by the pool type trip, we wanted to be close to the bars and Hotel Perla is exactly that! So much so it’s opposite a bar which is open until 6am, the reviews advised us to book a room the other side of the hotel as you wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise. After a hiccup with our room we got a room towards the back of the hotel facing the pool in the end.
Our first impressions of Benidorm was a group of loud drunken lads chanting outside the hotel and then after checking in, we went in the lift up to our room to find doner kebab thrown all over it… lovely eh.
The Strip
Our first day we spent it at the Beachfront drinking cheap drinks and people watching.
We wanted to try the strip on our first night and found it to be everything you would expect it to be like, hen parties, stag do’s, people throwing up on corners, annoying reps trying to get you into bars with drink offers.
For us, we’d seen it all before and was exactly what we thought it would be like, the only annoying thing for me was you literally cannot walk 10 feet down the strip without someone trying to sell drugs, im sure all the young lads and girls try this but its very full on, after a few hours we just learnt to totally ignore them.
The bars weren’t as cheap as we thought they would be but provided entertainment and some laughs, there were tribute shows on, dj’s and plenty of places to dance the night away.
I’m a council estate kid, I’m very much working class so rowdy groups, chanting and singing is something that doesn’t bother me in the slightest, actually, after a couple beers you’d probably find me chanting ‘so good’ ‘so good’ ‘so good’ in the middle of them all when Sweet Caroline comes on.
We came to the conclusion that the strip is probably for those younger than us, only because we weren’t there to get paralytic drunk, take drugs or find some randomer to get back to our hotel room and maybe because we’d done all that in our younger years, so after day 1, we decided to try somewhere else.
We Found Our Place
This might be my age, im very much for the day drinks and home by 10pm if we go out in our hometown Manchester these days.
Benidorm for me was the same (not that we ever went. back pre 2am but still) the day time we walked the beach front, so many bars and restaurants to choose from we ventured into which ever one which took our fancy.
The more the day went on the further we walked where we randomly ventured into a little karaoke bar, we found our scene, filled with those in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s this was certainly more our scene than the 19 year olds on the strip.
So much so after going back to the hotel to get showered and changed, we ventured back into the karaoke bar 10 minutes walk from the strip and stayed there the night.
Honest Thoughts
Honestly…. Benidorm was and is everything we thought it would be, we joked and said it would be like Butlins in the sun after recently going to an adult weekend at Butlins or the Butlins Big Weekender as they call it.
And im not being disrespectful when I say that but that’s exactly what it is, it’s a bit scruffy, its run down, it’s cheap as chips, it’s full of boozed up Brits but d’ya know what, we had fun, there was no fighting, there was a heavy police presence but there is nothing to see that you wouldn’t see at 1am in Manchester city centre.
We laughed from the moment we checked in at Manchester airport to the moment we checked out, we drank far too much and partied like we were 21 but it provided one of the best birthday’s I’ve had in a long time, we’ll be back to Benidorm for sure.
Check out my vlog of my birthday trip to the island of Booze
No Comment! Be the first one.