I went to Salou about 4 years ago on a whim, and had a very funny time. So, when I saw the chance to go for a few days for around £140, I thought it would be a great chance to go for a few laughs and days in the sun. As it turns out, the place is a little different from how I remember.

Flights

The flights I ended up taking were lovely. £47 return from Leeds, outbounc 0800 Sun 05th, inbound 1800 Tues 07th July. Lots of time in Spain for only 2 nights of accom cost, and flight times that weren't totally knackering either.

Reus to Salou

Landing in Reus airport (which was lovely and quiet with no Entry Exit System queue's at all), I tried to order a Bolt to the hotel. The week before when looking at costs, it showed about €19 one-way from Reus airport to Salou (lovely). However, when I tried to order one for real, a timer came up preventing me from doing it for about 15 mins (this is a Catalonian regulation to help protect the jobs of normal Taxi's). This wait alone wouldn't have been bad, but when the timer had expired, the cost was up at €40 one-way (presumably because loads of passengers were now trying the same thing). Worse still, the taxis in the rank were quoting €38 as well. Luckily, the lovely woman in the travel info desk told us of a bus. €3.80 each (cash only) straight to Salou, and the legend of a driver even took notes of our hotels and dropped us pretty much straight outside. Legend.

Timer in-action

The Bolt costs when the timer expired (!!)

The bus that dropped us off right outside the hotel

T-80 Shooting Star outside the terminal

The Hotel

I found a deal for 2 people for 2 nights in Hotel Ponient Marinada for £96 each. Kitchenette, balcony, air con, free breakfast. Solid. What I did not realise was that the hotel is affiliated with the PortAventura world theme park. I think you get 50% off park tickets if you stay here, but it also meant a LOT of families and kids (although in fairness Salou in General was rammed with families, helped by it being school holidays in Scotland and Ireland. There is also the main hotel bit and then an aparthotels section across the road (I guess one they bought after the main hotel was built). We were across in that one.

All in, the hotel was fine. Nice interior, one busy but standard pool. The pool bar was expensive though (€3.80 ish for a small beer) and they were cheeky in that they charged €5 to use the luggage storage room if you wanted to walk around with no bags. Which we did on the last day. So that kind of sucked. Views from the rooms were nothing special either, but the room DID have mega-freeze (bacially the cooling element in the fridge had frozen over.) Rest of the fridge was too warm therefore, but kind of a funny way of cooling down 4 beers at a time.

Outside reception of the main hotel bit

Main hotel bar (fairly expensive though 🙁 )

The (busy) pool

Pool angle v2

Me by the pool (and 100% in my element 👀)

The aparthotels bit that we were in (just across the road from the main hotel)

Our room

Balcony with view of another hotels pool

MEGA-FREEZE!!!

The kitchenette

Bathroom

Salou Itself

I was expecting cheap, but funny. One of your standard Spanish touristy coastal towns, nothing really cultural but funny enough you think its worthwhile.

Annoyingly, that didn't feel like the case. Firstly, the place was BUSY, but somehow didn't feel lively. As I mentioned it was mid Irish and Scottish school holidays which probably didn't help, but every bar seemed quiet. We weren't looking for anythjing mental, but some places with a bit of something would have been nice.

Secondly, it was EXPENSIVE! Like, average seemed like €5 a pint expensive. This I know seems regular enough, but in Spain when a crate of beers from the supermarket is sub-€4, that felt mental to me. A fair few places did do daytime happy hours (La Azotea for its happy hour 2 for 1 cocktails for €10 (so €5 each), Bohemia for €2.50 pints and 1l of Sangria for €9), but on the whole everything was far more expensive than I was hoping or expecting. Food was also generally expensive (i.e. Bamboo's seafood Paella was about €23 per person, which tasted nice enough but was a bit small for the cost).

The place also seemed a bit run down in places. There were a couple of places that were kind of cool, but really nothing stood out for much reason.

Palm trees on a promenade bit near the beach

Main beach (busy)

Main beach at sunset (still busy)

Statues just round the corner from the main beach

Small little beach just by those statues (cool actually!)

Another beach (also busy)

Me next to the Salou sign (pointing at it. Because of course I am)

La Azotea cocktail bar

€5 a cocktail at happy hour in La Azotea

Overall

This is actually a perfect example of the trip philosophy I keep banging on about. If you go somewhere for £1000 and its a bit shit, you feel terrible. But if you go somewhere for cheap enough, even if it's not the best thing in the world, you can still have a laugh, and also then just go somewhere else again on another trip in a few weeks time anyway.

This trip was fine. It was a good chance for a laugh with a friend, which we had during the day but the lack of livliness at night was a bit crap (Spain even won a football world cup round of 16 game on the Monday night, and bar beeping of horns, the atmosphere didn't increase any at all)

Regarding Salou itself, I like it when somewhere has something standing out for it. Something like great views, cool buildings, really cheap, etc. But Salou didn't feel like it had any of these things. Quite a standard touristy set-up, but not lively, not cheap, no really cool buildings, no standout food. So overall, not my favourite place by a fair way.

(I did also get food poisoning here, pretty sure from the shop-bought pre-cooked prawns. Shelled bastards. Annoying as I was just stuck inside for 2 days when I got home, but not gonna let that dent my opinion of the place. Hardly it's fault (probably anyway))

So to summarise: My favourite place ever? No

Would I look to come back to Salou? Probably not (at least not in a hurry, or unless it was really cheap) Was it still worth going for 2 nights for £143? Yes. Despite the issues, it was still good to get away for a few days and have a look-see round somewhere else (for sure better than staying at home for 2 nights anyways!)

Going Forward

I'd be interested in flying into Reus again and exploring towns up and down the coast, as I reckon some will be BEAUTIES given that Salou hoovers up so much of the tourist traffic.

But shows you. Do a low cost but solid looking trip, and even if it isn't unreal, its still worth going (even if you decide you wouldn't go back again anytime soon)

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