For my work’s 10th birthday they decided to treat their staff to a long weekend away in Marbella. After waking up at 4.30am and arriving at Southend airport, we boarded the plane and away we went.
We stayed at the H10 Andalucia Plaza which was a lovely modern hotel with nice sized rooms and a balcony.
The first day wasn’t the warmest as it was cloudy and windy (but being the typical brits we are, we continued to walk around without jumpers on hoping we’d catch a tan on our arms). We went for lunch at the Hard Rock Café which was delicious. I had the spinach artichoke dip (starter for mains) as we had dinner in the evening at the hotel. The rest of us had either the burger or veggie burger which looked so nice and the portion sizes are massive. We also got a cocktail with lunch. A long island ice tea was roughly 8 euros but for an extra 6 euros they doubled the size of the cocktail and we got the keep the souvenir glass.
From the hard rock we headed down to the marina where we found a really nice little shisha bar called Café De Ogaret. The owner could not have looked after us enough, topping up our shisha for free once the flavour ran out and proving us with a massive discount on our jugs of sangria. He even bought us free chips and olives.
On Friday night after dinner at the hotel we headed out to a local bar called ‘sky bar’. They had a promo team offering a deal which cost 15euros for unlimited drinks for the hour and they threw in 2 bottles of cava for once this deal had finished (it was safe to say we were all extremely drunk after this). Spanish drink measures are about half and half vodka and mixer as well so they are very strong.
On Saturday morning we woke up (after little sleep) and headed down to the breakfast buffet. We filled up on food to help the alcohol belly and then headed to the pool to snooze in the sun. The weather was pretty warm (minus the wind and sun going behind the tree) but the swimming pool was absolutely freezing. It literally took my breath away and I couldn’t get any words out for about a minute or so. The minute I surfaced from the water my body let out an almighty high pitched noise which let the whole hotel know how cold the water was. We had a really fun day around the pool, chilling our listening to music and my director went to the market and came back with some funny pants for Elliot which kept us all amused for 10 minutes.
Saturday evening the shisha bar we had previously been to was closed so we went to the one next door (which didn’t do us a deal) Restaurante Altanour where we stocked up on more shisha and sangria whilst watching the firework in the background. This was a really cute little bar with fire heaters, fleece blankets and cosy sofas to sit on. After this we headed back to sky bar where we had a few drinks and a dance and chatted to the bar lady (who played the original Lucy Beale in Eastenders from age 2-10). We were having such a good time that we stayed until the lights came on and the music cut out and then we stumbled our way back to the hotel. Rhiannon came and crashed in mine and Kirstie’s room for ‘sleepover club’ and we literally hit the pillows and fell asleep. The bed was a pretty good size though as the three of us slept comfortably in the two twin beds pushed together.
On our final day we took a walk down to the promenade in the sun where we walked 8.6 miles (20,506 steps). We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. As it was a Sunday I couldn’t resist getting a traditional roast lamb which was lovely. When we got back to the hotel we chilled round the pool for a few hours and convinced all of the others to go for a dip in the pool, before heading back to the first shisha bar we went to on Friday. Due to his service we decided to go back for our last evening to watch the sunset (with a cocktail in hand) and again was provided with a great deal. After this we walked back to the hotel for dinner and a ‘family night’ with our directors where we handed out ‘Planet Leasing holiday awards’ which was a laugh.
We had such a fun, packed weekend and I would definitely love to go back to Marbella in season when there would be more people around and a more ‘buzzing’ atmosphere.