Benidorm News: Benidorm Beaches, Bars, Hotels, Restaurants & Campsites Preparing To Re-open!
We’ve recently been inundated with questions surrounding the re-opening of Benidorm and Benidorm Campsites here on the Costa Blanca so we thought we’d put together a compilation of videos and images that will help you understand the measures being taken to get our fabulous holiday resort back up and running. (You may even see some of your favourite Benidorm bars, restaurants & hotels filmed in our video!)
Benidorm Campsites are usually our speciality but Benidorm as a whole goes hand in hand with what we do and we’d like to give you a full run-down on the progress of the re-opening.
Benidorm Campsites
Benidorm Campsites are semi-open. At this moment in time, the internal areas of the Campsites are open just to serve the long term clients of the Campsite. The Campsites with popular restaurants and bars such as Camping Villamar, Camping Almafra & Camping Raco are allowing the public to use these facilities. Each Campsite has taken a different stance as to what internal facilities are open at the moment and this will be dependant on current numbers and requirements of long term clients on each Campsite. Swimming pools and toilet blocks are slowly beginning to re-open and we expect that as soon as holiday makers begin to arrive, most facilities will be open but with restrictions in place. As with some of the Hotels in Benidorm, some of the Campsites have used the foced closure to upgrade their facilities. Camping Almafra has renovated its main Bar & Restaurant area aswell as a installing a brand new swimming pool area.
Benidorm Hotels
Many Benidorm Hotels have been catering more or less exclusively for the British tourist for many years and without British holidaymakers coming to the resort, they can only plan and hope all goes well with the lifting of the travel restrictions in the coming weeks. Hotels have huge operating costs and rely on huge volumes of British visiting the resort throughout the year. Hotels stand to be most financially affected by the current situation and with the loss of the St Patricks weekend, Cheltenham races and possibly the fancy dress festival in November (not confirmed) it could take a while for them to get back to full strength. Some of the larger hotel groups such as Servigroup and Medplaya have suggested that they will re-open some but not all of their Hotels in the short-term.
Taking a look around Benidorm at the hotels it’s difficult to see any indication that they may be preparing to re-open any time soon. We’re sure that as soon as there is confirmation travel to Benidorm can be resumed it will be all systems go! On the plus side, you can see that some of the hotels have taken the forced closure as an opportunity to upgrade some facilities within the hotel so you may have a nice surprise on your arrival!
Benidorm Bars & Restaurants
We’ve not been into the hub of Benidorm ourselves since the lockdown so it was interesting to see how the lockdown had affected a resort usually bustling with tourists and with packed beaches at this time of year. Reading reports published online today, the borders will open earlier than expected (21st June) instead of the 1st July date we were initially given. With that in mind, Summer holidays may just happen!
The indications are good and with the new safety measures in place for the ‘new normal’, it will still be an enjoyable place to visit. Some of the bars & restaurants most popular with locals were open and many were getting ready to re-open. Everyones favourite-Tiki Beach was open (as expected, not as busy as usual!) but it was nice to see a bit of atmosphere in an area that has otherwise been deserted for many weeks. Calle Gerona was quieter than expected. We had seen that Rockstar, Andys Bar & Jumping Jacks had initially been opened but we’re led to believe (although we can’t confirm) that they had closed due to a licensing issue in the corresponding phase. Winning Post, Rovers Return and Bourbons on the entry to the yellow brick road were open but not many others. The ‘old town’ of Benidorm was busier. Some of the smaller bars and restaurants had re-opened and it ‘almost’ felt like a Sunday afternoon atmosphere. Most of the shops are still closed but seeing people enjoying a drink on the street-side tables and families taking a stroll gave a sense that normality is resuming.
‘Phase 3’ in Spain begins tomorrow so we’ll likely see an influx of Spanish holiday makers in the coming weeks, which will give the resort a much needed boost of income. This in turn will no doubt see the re-opening of many of the bars and restaurants that held off opening with the previous restrictions. From tomorrow, bars & restaurants can have 75% capacity inside and 100% capacity on their terrace (with 2m distances in place). Nightclubs can open but with only 30% capacity (and no dancing permitted!) we don’t think they’ll be re-opening in this phase. Unfortunately most of the bigger bars in Benidorm hold a nightclub license so these may be affected for a while yet.
Benidorm Beaches
The big news is that Benidorms beaches re-open tomorrow (Monday 15th) which is causing a huge amount of excitement!. Beaches in surrounding areas have been open for a week or so but Benidorm chose to ‘hold off’ opening due to the complexity of safety control on beaches which see 1,000’s of tourists all packed together in small spaces. It was the correct decision to make and taking at the safety measures in place, Benidorm council has done a great job in their planning and execution. The beach has been divided into 4m x 4m plots with specific areas for the over 70’s. There are new signs installed indicating the rules for the use of the beach. We won’t go into these too much (as we don’t want to bore you with the details!) but as you can see we took a photo of one of the new signs. There is currently a lot of police presence on the promenade and we’re not too sure if there’ll be the same amount once the beach opens but they were in the process of installing entry and exit areas to the beach and preparing for tomorrow.
We’re taking each day one step at a time but it looks like we’re coming out the other side of what has been the strangest 15 or so weeks. We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading our Benidorm Blog & be rest assured; Benidorm will be back on it’s feet before we know it. But It’s true what they say…Benidorm needs tourists and none more so than the British! If you’ve got a booking to come to Benidorm, keep checking with your booking agents for travel updates and we hope to see you all soon! Adios Amigos!!
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