I've been checking out the reviews for years on spotlight, but never actually written one. So here goes. First time for everything!!
We flew from Leeds on the 29[SUP]th[/SUP] June for two weeks. Hubby myself and our little girl. Flew Ryanair which was better than last year but still sucked! One of my best mates (my daughter's God mother) flew out from South Africa and she met us at the Villa. Picked up our hire car. The whole process was a complete nightmare – it normally is fairly painless, but there were some issues with two other people in front of us. It literally took 2 hours to get the car. I requested and (paid for!) a medium family car (booked through travel supermarket – I guess their idea of a family car is different to the hire car companies!) What I managed to climb into (sideways) was a 2 door Citroen with enough space for half a person and a driver. We couldn't be arsed arguing as just wanted to get to our home for the next two weeks. So, my hubby, being very spatially aware, packed up our car like a little sardine tin and off we went. I was now thankful that we were only allowed 15kg bag each and a push chair on Ryanair.....The car drove surprisingly well and was pretty comfortable in the front.
We got to our Villa which was above Cala Gracionette. OMG! It was so cool, chilled very comfortable & well set up. My mate had dinner and ice cold Albarino ready for our arrival. (We're all foodies, love cooking and she's a great cook). The villa was about 5 mins drive to San An, not our usual location. Great views, fab pool, nice & quiet, air con, bose sounds system, comfy beds. Exactly what we needed!
I got my mate to do the shopping as we got in late on Saturday and knew shops would be closed on the Sunday. We go shopping at Suma in port des torrent (which is a little further than Lidol etc but it is my favourite grocery store). It was like going home & shopping at our local ;-). I thought prices for food/drinks in the supermarket were good this year and the quality of the food excellent.
Drinks out were about the same I feel - but to be fair they haven't gone up much for a few years now. Ate out at a few old (La Oliva) & new restaurants. Al ayoun was somewhere we'd not been before. Great white wine. Food was OK. I'm not sure it was worth the price.
Didn't over do it - I drank very little & was generally very well behaved. Besides what we did have didn't work very well so I was like. What's the point? I'm having such a great time, I don't need anything. That, is a great place to be! My mate was with us for the first 6 days.
We chose Blue Marlin on the first sunday so we could dance outside (5:30-12) also the music at we love space has been so down tempo. Id listened to a few of the dj's & decided we wouldn't go. The first night we had dinner early with my daughter at Blue Marlin. Food was good but over priced and not enough of a variance. the first dj was playing cool house tracks to start. My hubby took girlie home after dinner. My mate and I stayed behind. The place was absolutely rammed! We managed to squeeze between all the VIP areas and shuffle in a corner. Barbara Tucker came on after the first DJ. damn she was not very good. She was not very good when I heard her at Defected in 2005 when I went to see Kid Creme and Junior Jack (who were amazing!) and she was not very good this time round either! Still the same songs too! I didn't realise she was on. I think if I had, we would have avoided it.
She literally shouted into the mic & sang so off key I had to close my ears. She ended with some awful whitney Houstan song that was so bad I've blocked it from my memory. thankfully she wasn't on for very long. Next dj was ok, nothing worth remembering. but the last dj was so kak. Commercial electro for the main part of the night with some awful hip hop thrown in towards the end (I used to be a huge fan of well constructed hip hop – Dr. Dre etc – older stuff. Hubby can't stand it!). The DJ's Mixing was non-existent. He just slapped on one commercial tune after the other. The crowd were going mental though which was a concern.... do people really like that high-pitched radio sound? Crowd was mostly older than me & 90% dutch. They are a friendly race, though very straight forward (that coming from a Safa!). My mate and I were hit on loads without my hubby around. We left at 11.
Tuesday we went to Ocean Beach. Primarily to check out if they managed to achieve the sound of Balearic Ibiza that I first came to love in 2003.....and also because of its location. Being close to our villa meant easy to get home as we left our daughter with the baby sitter. Cool tunes (except the last one we heard which was that whitny houstan one) & great potential (albeit the setting is a bit Miamified). Its location being San An so as to be expected, full to the brim of not the most friendly British folk. I usually find the UK crowd pretty up for it and friendly, but there was a lot of Charlie going on so that seemed to change the vibe a bit. All the chicks were wearing waist high shorts and huge top knots on their heads, constantly checking their mirrors or adding more make up to their already over made-up faces. Let yourselves be girlies! Don't worry so much about the mirror/hair/make-up! Most of you looked gorgeous without all that stuff! The guys were all pumped up & waxed. No one was dancing on the “dance floor†though there were a few dancing in the VIP sections at the back. My mate & I danced on our own for a little. The sound system was incredibly clear but not loud enough. Apparently they got into kak before for the music being too loud. Really friendly staff, great sushi. As I say, great potential, though we won't be going back. We ended the evening with a walk into town & pizza at David's which was divine!
A few great meals out, Braai's (bbq's), beaches & chilling. Our favourite restaurant was a beach restaurant. Great fresh food, typical Ibiza prices. Amazing food & views!
We just chilled by the pool for the remainder of the week, cooked, caught up with each other drinking wine and chatting till 2am. It was very relaxing. My mate left on the Friday.
Then my sister and her Fiancé arrived the next day from South Africa. OMG I was so excited! That night (our only proper club night) was Elrow. We were hoping to get wrist bands but never found any. Bought our tickets from Ibiza Rocks bar. Got to Vista at about 12:30. And we were not allowed in. Apparently we had been sold the incorrect tickets. I had bought tickets for the Tuesday – (apparently) even though it said on the Ibiza Rocks board Elrow. Eventually after much discussion they let us in after we agreed to pay an additional 10 euro each. The place was empty when we arrived. The toilets down stairs had the most disgusting smell. Thankfully we found the other loo's which were clean, however you had to make sure you chose the right one because otherwise people coming down the stairs could peer in while you're having a pee!
Mixed ages mostly Italian, spanish, sardinian crowd. Zero top knots spotted. We chilled outside checking the view till about 1:30. We went inside and. OMFG! It was so pounding. It was hard and driving and constant. Exactly how I like it! No break downs, just constant throbbing you felt in your chest. Lots of Interesting riffs & samples & mind blowing show & atmosphere. Dancers who actually danced. The party only got going at about 1:30. They had so many people dressed up & each group of people dressed up had a role to play to create a certain atmosphere. Dwarfs & acrobats. People dressed as Mexicans & lemons handing out tequila, lemons and salt. We all got some Elrow money so we could buy things from the "shops". Inflatable crocodiles & whales, pirate hats & all kinds of other hats, glasses, stickers, whistles, & tons of other brightly coloured tat. Then at 3:15am every member of production was out in force. There was a massive bang & all these streamers & balls came out of the roof. There was this "police man" suspended from an elastic from the roof bouncing up & down frantically blowing his whistle whilst writing tickets for bad behaviour & throwing them at us. Was so funny! We laughed a lot that night! We left about 4:15. Got home and had to see to our daughter who had woken from a bad dream. Got to bed at about 5:30.
Next day was back to blue marlin (5:30pm-12) to see MAURO FERRUCCI & tommy VEE (not sure why they're in upper case there!). It was so much fun, brilliantly mixed & bringing in riffs from 3 songs back, throwing in some doors & David Bowie tunes too. The DJ's were having a great time which I think is important. There is nothing better than dancing outside to happy house under the stars seeing smiling DJ's and smiling faces all around you. Lots of proper 2003/4/5 house tracks - updated. Before them was a live band singing house tunes unplugged. They were really very very good. Mixed crowed, certainly didn't feel the oldest there. Too many VIP spots (minimum spend of £2K for 4 people) which meant space was a little limited, though certainly more space than the week before. This week was far less pretentious and more of a Cosmopolitan crowd, only one top knot spotted. I think if you choose Blue Marlin on the right day, it can be a great place.
My mom arrived late on the Monday eve. She stayed at Hotel Bahia and said it was really lovely. Tuesday we showed my mom some of our fav places / beaches around the island then we had all the family round ours for a braai (bbq). I made loads of salad, veggies, meat and fish and fruit. It was fab! I love these big get-togethers. Makes me miss my family back home so much.
After showing my Mom round the Dalt Villa and having dinner on the wed (my Mom's last night), My sis and Fiance went to see guy Gerber & Magda at Pacha for wisdom of the glove. She said she preferred magda. Base wasn't a constant driving. Too many breaks, slow on the whole & then absolutely insane when the base kicked in. I would've found that very frustrating. Don't dig the whole stop start stop thing. They loved it.
Our last night (6:30pm-12) out we went to Le grand bazaar hosted by Pete tong at. Ushuaia. Crowd mostly british & 18-30. we weren't the oldest, but plenty of young messy kids (what are people taking nowadays!?). Sound system was not brilliant. Dc10 & space way better. It really was a bizarre combination. Idris elba played a lot of commercial electro sh*t, some drum & bass, dub step, hip hop, house, 90's house (all of which I don't mind) - but he had a great time and was an enthusiastic DJ. He had everyone dancing at some point, though IMO he was a glorified wedding dj. Next came grumpy up his arse Pete tong. He played a very boring deep house set that really didn't need mixing. He basically nodded his head, drank champagne & tweaked a few buttons (he only smiled when the camera was on him. Why? Life is AWESOME dude. SMILE!). Fat boy slim was 40 mins late. After an extra 20 mins of Tong playing (it seemed to put him out of his comfort zone), they turned off all the lights on the stage & put on a cd!!!! They let the cd play for a while. No one seemed to notice (?). People were generally friendly and up for it. Eventually fatboy came on. He took off his shoes & played such a fab party set. Saw him last year at Bora Bora and he was boring, so I wasn't expecting great things. I was wrong! People were going off! He was Bouncing on the stage, fire works, ice machines going, massive LCD display in the back great laser lights, crystal clad dancers (who weren't actually dancing - they were just strutting & pouting.) my sister got very drunk though & I ended up having to look after her which was somewhat frustrating, but she obviously wanted to go big for her last night, & drank waaay too much for her little body! We left at midnight but couldn't drive home as my sister was too poorly to get in the car. That was pretty kak as we had to be up at 8am to get ready to leave the villa and finish packing with a little one too!
Our last day we met up with my very hung over sister and her not hung over Fiancé. We decided to eat at Ibiza Rocks as their breakfast sounded good. We were wrong!! It was revolting! We said a very emotional good bye and then spent some time walking around Ibiza town, which we've never done properly. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Checked out the shops and boats, had an ice-cream and then found a cute little restaurant near the airport for our last lunch before our flight home. Got home at about 11:30pm and couldn't find the front door key. Had all the bags unpacked in the front garden. Couldn't get a lock smith out so had to break into our own house which wasn't cool. All in all though, as usual, an amazing holiday! Can't wait to go back, just my hubby and I in less than 2 weeks! I love Ibiza!
We flew from Leeds on the 29[SUP]th[/SUP] June for two weeks. Hubby myself and our little girl. Flew Ryanair which was better than last year but still sucked! One of my best mates (my daughter's God mother) flew out from South Africa and she met us at the Villa. Picked up our hire car. The whole process was a complete nightmare – it normally is fairly painless, but there were some issues with two other people in front of us. It literally took 2 hours to get the car. I requested and (paid for!) a medium family car (booked through travel supermarket – I guess their idea of a family car is different to the hire car companies!) What I managed to climb into (sideways) was a 2 door Citroen with enough space for half a person and a driver. We couldn't be arsed arguing as just wanted to get to our home for the next two weeks. So, my hubby, being very spatially aware, packed up our car like a little sardine tin and off we went. I was now thankful that we were only allowed 15kg bag each and a push chair on Ryanair.....The car drove surprisingly well and was pretty comfortable in the front.
We got to our Villa which was above Cala Gracionette. OMG! It was so cool, chilled very comfortable & well set up. My mate had dinner and ice cold Albarino ready for our arrival. (We're all foodies, love cooking and she's a great cook). The villa was about 5 mins drive to San An, not our usual location. Great views, fab pool, nice & quiet, air con, bose sounds system, comfy beds. Exactly what we needed!
I got my mate to do the shopping as we got in late on Saturday and knew shops would be closed on the Sunday. We go shopping at Suma in port des torrent (which is a little further than Lidol etc but it is my favourite grocery store). It was like going home & shopping at our local ;-). I thought prices for food/drinks in the supermarket were good this year and the quality of the food excellent.
Drinks out were about the same I feel - but to be fair they haven't gone up much for a few years now. Ate out at a few old (La Oliva) & new restaurants. Al ayoun was somewhere we'd not been before. Great white wine. Food was OK. I'm not sure it was worth the price.
Didn't over do it - I drank very little & was generally very well behaved. Besides what we did have didn't work very well so I was like. What's the point? I'm having such a great time, I don't need anything. That, is a great place to be! My mate was with us for the first 6 days.
We chose Blue Marlin on the first sunday so we could dance outside (5:30-12) also the music at we love space has been so down tempo. Id listened to a few of the dj's & decided we wouldn't go. The first night we had dinner early with my daughter at Blue Marlin. Food was good but over priced and not enough of a variance. the first dj was playing cool house tracks to start. My hubby took girlie home after dinner. My mate and I stayed behind. The place was absolutely rammed! We managed to squeeze between all the VIP areas and shuffle in a corner. Barbara Tucker came on after the first DJ. damn she was not very good. She was not very good when I heard her at Defected in 2005 when I went to see Kid Creme and Junior Jack (who were amazing!) and she was not very good this time round either! Still the same songs too! I didn't realise she was on. I think if I had, we would have avoided it.
She literally shouted into the mic & sang so off key I had to close my ears. She ended with some awful whitney Houstan song that was so bad I've blocked it from my memory. thankfully she wasn't on for very long. Next dj was ok, nothing worth remembering. but the last dj was so kak. Commercial electro for the main part of the night with some awful hip hop thrown in towards the end (I used to be a huge fan of well constructed hip hop – Dr. Dre etc – older stuff. Hubby can't stand it!). The DJ's Mixing was non-existent. He just slapped on one commercial tune after the other. The crowd were going mental though which was a concern.... do people really like that high-pitched radio sound? Crowd was mostly older than me & 90% dutch. They are a friendly race, though very straight forward (that coming from a Safa!). My mate and I were hit on loads without my hubby around. We left at 11.
Tuesday we went to Ocean Beach. Primarily to check out if they managed to achieve the sound of Balearic Ibiza that I first came to love in 2003.....and also because of its location. Being close to our villa meant easy to get home as we left our daughter with the baby sitter. Cool tunes (except the last one we heard which was that whitny houstan one) & great potential (albeit the setting is a bit Miamified). Its location being San An so as to be expected, full to the brim of not the most friendly British folk. I usually find the UK crowd pretty up for it and friendly, but there was a lot of Charlie going on so that seemed to change the vibe a bit. All the chicks were wearing waist high shorts and huge top knots on their heads, constantly checking their mirrors or adding more make up to their already over made-up faces. Let yourselves be girlies! Don't worry so much about the mirror/hair/make-up! Most of you looked gorgeous without all that stuff! The guys were all pumped up & waxed. No one was dancing on the “dance floor†though there were a few dancing in the VIP sections at the back. My mate & I danced on our own for a little. The sound system was incredibly clear but not loud enough. Apparently they got into kak before for the music being too loud. Really friendly staff, great sushi. As I say, great potential, though we won't be going back. We ended the evening with a walk into town & pizza at David's which was divine!
A few great meals out, Braai's (bbq's), beaches & chilling. Our favourite restaurant was a beach restaurant. Great fresh food, typical Ibiza prices. Amazing food & views!
We just chilled by the pool for the remainder of the week, cooked, caught up with each other drinking wine and chatting till 2am. It was very relaxing. My mate left on the Friday.
Then my sister and her Fiancé arrived the next day from South Africa. OMG I was so excited! That night (our only proper club night) was Elrow. We were hoping to get wrist bands but never found any. Bought our tickets from Ibiza Rocks bar. Got to Vista at about 12:30. And we were not allowed in. Apparently we had been sold the incorrect tickets. I had bought tickets for the Tuesday – (apparently) even though it said on the Ibiza Rocks board Elrow. Eventually after much discussion they let us in after we agreed to pay an additional 10 euro each. The place was empty when we arrived. The toilets down stairs had the most disgusting smell. Thankfully we found the other loo's which were clean, however you had to make sure you chose the right one because otherwise people coming down the stairs could peer in while you're having a pee!
Mixed ages mostly Italian, spanish, sardinian crowd. Zero top knots spotted. We chilled outside checking the view till about 1:30. We went inside and. OMFG! It was so pounding. It was hard and driving and constant. Exactly how I like it! No break downs, just constant throbbing you felt in your chest. Lots of Interesting riffs & samples & mind blowing show & atmosphere. Dancers who actually danced. The party only got going at about 1:30. They had so many people dressed up & each group of people dressed up had a role to play to create a certain atmosphere. Dwarfs & acrobats. People dressed as Mexicans & lemons handing out tequila, lemons and salt. We all got some Elrow money so we could buy things from the "shops". Inflatable crocodiles & whales, pirate hats & all kinds of other hats, glasses, stickers, whistles, & tons of other brightly coloured tat. Then at 3:15am every member of production was out in force. There was a massive bang & all these streamers & balls came out of the roof. There was this "police man" suspended from an elastic from the roof bouncing up & down frantically blowing his whistle whilst writing tickets for bad behaviour & throwing them at us. Was so funny! We laughed a lot that night! We left about 4:15. Got home and had to see to our daughter who had woken from a bad dream. Got to bed at about 5:30.
Next day was back to blue marlin (5:30pm-12) to see MAURO FERRUCCI & tommy VEE (not sure why they're in upper case there!). It was so much fun, brilliantly mixed & bringing in riffs from 3 songs back, throwing in some doors & David Bowie tunes too. The DJ's were having a great time which I think is important. There is nothing better than dancing outside to happy house under the stars seeing smiling DJ's and smiling faces all around you. Lots of proper 2003/4/5 house tracks - updated. Before them was a live band singing house tunes unplugged. They were really very very good. Mixed crowed, certainly didn't feel the oldest there. Too many VIP spots (minimum spend of £2K for 4 people) which meant space was a little limited, though certainly more space than the week before. This week was far less pretentious and more of a Cosmopolitan crowd, only one top knot spotted. I think if you choose Blue Marlin on the right day, it can be a great place.
My mom arrived late on the Monday eve. She stayed at Hotel Bahia and said it was really lovely. Tuesday we showed my mom some of our fav places / beaches around the island then we had all the family round ours for a braai (bbq). I made loads of salad, veggies, meat and fish and fruit. It was fab! I love these big get-togethers. Makes me miss my family back home so much.
After showing my Mom round the Dalt Villa and having dinner on the wed (my Mom's last night), My sis and Fiance went to see guy Gerber & Magda at Pacha for wisdom of the glove. She said she preferred magda. Base wasn't a constant driving. Too many breaks, slow on the whole & then absolutely insane when the base kicked in. I would've found that very frustrating. Don't dig the whole stop start stop thing. They loved it.
Our last night (6:30pm-12) out we went to Le grand bazaar hosted by Pete tong at. Ushuaia. Crowd mostly british & 18-30. we weren't the oldest, but plenty of young messy kids (what are people taking nowadays!?). Sound system was not brilliant. Dc10 & space way better. It really was a bizarre combination. Idris elba played a lot of commercial electro sh*t, some drum & bass, dub step, hip hop, house, 90's house (all of which I don't mind) - but he had a great time and was an enthusiastic DJ. He had everyone dancing at some point, though IMO he was a glorified wedding dj. Next came grumpy up his arse Pete tong. He played a very boring deep house set that really didn't need mixing. He basically nodded his head, drank champagne & tweaked a few buttons (he only smiled when the camera was on him. Why? Life is AWESOME dude. SMILE!). Fat boy slim was 40 mins late. After an extra 20 mins of Tong playing (it seemed to put him out of his comfort zone), they turned off all the lights on the stage & put on a cd!!!! They let the cd play for a while. No one seemed to notice (?). People were generally friendly and up for it. Eventually fatboy came on. He took off his shoes & played such a fab party set. Saw him last year at Bora Bora and he was boring, so I wasn't expecting great things. I was wrong! People were going off! He was Bouncing on the stage, fire works, ice machines going, massive LCD display in the back great laser lights, crystal clad dancers (who weren't actually dancing - they were just strutting & pouting.) my sister got very drunk though & I ended up having to look after her which was somewhat frustrating, but she obviously wanted to go big for her last night, & drank waaay too much for her little body! We left at midnight but couldn't drive home as my sister was too poorly to get in the car. That was pretty kak as we had to be up at 8am to get ready to leave the villa and finish packing with a little one too!
Our last day we met up with my very hung over sister and her not hung over Fiancé. We decided to eat at Ibiza Rocks as their breakfast sounded good. We were wrong!! It was revolting! We said a very emotional good bye and then spent some time walking around Ibiza town, which we've never done properly. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Checked out the shops and boats, had an ice-cream and then found a cute little restaurant near the airport for our last lunch before our flight home. Got home at about 11:30pm and couldn't find the front door key. Had all the bags unpacked in the front garden. Couldn't get a lock smith out so had to break into our own house which wasn't cool. All in all though, as usual, an amazing holiday! Can't wait to go back, just my hubby and I in less than 2 weeks! I love Ibiza!
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