ibiza 2019 observations

agree on that road area back from the beach
but along the beach front is looking really good, lots of effort being made
Really that's good news. Last time I Walk that beach I looked like The Kardashians had Pop up bars in a refugee camp..
 
I stayed there in 2015 because I thought it was "nicer" how wrong I was.

It's a common fallacy amongst Brits. I still speak to friends who are adamant it is, but when you push for their criteria you get a wishy-washy response. I think since Space closed and Sankeys virtually disappeared it started sticking home a little more. Hopefully Octan breaths some fresh life into the area around it.
 
It's a common fallacy amongst Brits. I still speak to friends who are adamant it is, but when you push for their criteria you get a wishy-washy response. I think since Space closed and Sankeys virtually disappeared it started sticking home a little more. Hopefully Octan breaths some fresh life into the area around it.
Correct it's a huge debate but for me Bora Bora and the beach was the draw and space at the time. I agree it's declined since then hopefully Octan will revive it.

I also wish something would be done with the land across the road from Bora Bora apartments entrance it's just a waste
 
It's a common fallacy amongst Brits. I still speak to friends who are adamant it is, but when you push for their criteria you get a wishy-washy response. I think since Space closed and Sankeys virtually disappeared it started sticking home a little more. Hopefully Octan breaths some fresh life into the area around it.

After trying a stay in San An last summer, put me in the camp that's pretty adamant about preferring pdb. And it is all little things. The pdb crowd seems more into beach and party and has a different attitude than the getting smashed at a bar crowd elsewhere. The lookie-lookie guys in pdb may be annoying, but they're a lot more friendly on average than the guys selling nitrous balloons outside the San An bars. Even the prostitutes outside Ushuaia at 4am are generally pleasant, while the backstreets of San An in the wee hours of the morning are about the only times I've ever felt a bit unsafe on the island.

It may seem wishy-washy, but all those little annoyances elsewhere add up and take a cut into how much I enjoy my time there.
 
It may seem wishy-washy, but all those little annoyances elsewhere add up and take a cut into how much I enjoy my time there.

Understood. But my post wasn't about personal preference, it was strictly about the notion that Playa d'en Bossa is more upmarket than San An. Which it isn't, especially in its current state. Unless you're limiting your scope to a handful of 4-star hotels, which doesn't really give a fair reflection of the town as a whole.
 
Understood. But my post wasn't about personal preference, it was strictly about the notion that Playa d'en Bossa is more upmarket than San An. Which it isn't, especially in its current state. Unless you're limiting your scope to a handful of 4-star hotels, which doesn't really give a fair reflection of the town as a whole.

my take is this: lots of the hotels have gone upmarket, but the area as a whole is lacking behind.

in san an, things are now also starting to go upmarket but the contrast isn't as stark as in PdB and so the general feel might be different.
 
Just looking strictly at hotels I can say that it's looking like San An has less vacancy, for my trip dates anyway. I don't know the first thing about it though... Still looking forward to PdB despite it's ill repute.
 
Most of these hotels in San An or PDB don't give you much value that you expect from regular hotel bookings elsewhere in general. Playasol hotels for example got renovated, but instead of keeping prices constant which would make sense for the value finally, they increase the prices a lot, which again makes you feel you're getting ripped off.

I was fortunate to get an apartment hotel in PDB early at 100 EUR per day that seems consumerate with the level of value in receiving (huge space, small kitchen) but I was lucky. The high vacancy rates in PDB have to do with just overpaying and all the dealers and overall sketchiness does not help
 
I try and pin down time and time again why I don't like PDB any more (having been there on and off most years 2006-2018)...... Have I changed? Has it changed too much? Too upmarket? Downmarket?

But I come to one conclusion......

Space Baby...... Space!

Agreed. I also think a lot of the bars and restaurants there have started to think that they’re a bit more glamorous than they actually are. Was paying 14 euro + for very average cocktails in some pretty questionable bars last year, which just doesn’t add up for me.

I would say people getting worried about ‘gang wars’ etc are way overthinking it. There are a few dodgy people about but I have never felt remotely unsafe at any time of day or night around the main streets.
 
Surely some of these businesses must sit there and think “hang on if everyone is going up market let’s do something different” honestly if someone opened a decent priced hotel that had okay rooms and a bar/restaurant with normal priced food/drink would that not be full every night of the summer?

You could even have a roof top bar on the hotel to make it look classy but sell normal priced drinks then it would be a no brainier for punters to go there instead of the overpriced ones?!

Or that just too obvious to work!
 
Surely some of these businesses must sit there and think “hang on if everyone is going up market let’s do something different” honestly if someone opened a decent priced hotel that had okay rooms and a bar/restaurant with normal priced food/drink would that not be full every night of the summer?

You could even have a roof top bar on the hotel to make it look classy but sell normal priced drinks then it would be a no brainier for punters to go there instead of the overpriced ones?!

Or that just too obvious to work!

it's not that easy.

because of the upmarket trend, rents for bars have also gone up. in some places it's ridiculous what bar owners have to pay just to be able to open their place. and when you're in that situation the first thing you think isn't exactly 'oh I'm gonna lower my drink prices'.

it's maybe a bit of a general answer this, but just for perspective.
 
it's not that easy.

because of the upmarket trend, rents for bars have also gone up. in some places it's ridiculous what bar owners have to pay just to be able to open their place. and when you're in that situation the first thing you think isn't exactly 'oh I'm gonna lower my drink prices'.

it's maybe a bit of a general answer this, but just for perspective.
Didn’t really think of it like that. Is there a main owner for most of the property that’s then rented out to bars? Or is it just individuals who have bought it years ago and make a fortune on renting the space out that they wouldn’t ever sell the actual building?
 
Didn’t really think of it like that. Is there a main owner for most of the property that’s then rented out to bars? Or is it just individuals who have bought it years ago and make a fortune on renting the space out that they wouldn’t ever sell the actual building?
I suspect most properties are owned by one man / family
 
Didn’t really think of it like that. Is there a main owner for most of the property that’s then rented out to bars? Or is it just individuals who have bought it years ago and make a fortune on renting the space out that they wouldn’t ever sell the actual building?

of all the bars and restaurants you know, it's really only a fraction where the owner of the bar/restaurant is actually the owner of the building. a lot of places are rented/leased. I know of a few examples in ibiza town / port area where bar owners stopped doing it because the rent from one year to another had simply been doubled.
 
of all the bars and restaurants you know, it's really only a fraction where the owner of the bar/restaurant is actually the owner of the building. a lot of places are rented/leased. I know of a few examples in ibiza town / port area where bar owners stopped doing it because the rent from one year to another had simply been doubled.
Sounds like the British high street not be long before mike Ashley moves into PDB ??
 
I know tomorrow's resistance opening and that's probably the biggest event of the day/night.

but...that said people should maybe also have who cares at cova santa and/or keep on dancing at bora bora/el patio on the radar.

as usual, can't say more than that, but don't tell me I didn't warn you afterwards!
 
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