Hotel Gloria Palace San Agustin Thalasso

The Gloria Palace San Agustin is located on the south-east coast of Gran Canaria, on the heights of Playa San Agustin, at 1,900 feet from the beach. Allow 20 minutes driving from the international airport of Las Palmas, located 15 miles to the north. The hotel is about 30 miles away from Las Palmas, the capital of the island.

The beach is not really close to the hotel, but the bus drops you off for free on the beaches of Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles from 9.30am to 4.30pm. You can follow anti-smoking programmes, anti-rheumatism or anti-stress in the thalassatherapy center.

Lodging advice:

Five of the rooms are designated for disabled people. We recommend to the families with children to ask for one of the 86 familial rooms, recently renovated, more expensive but better equipped, with two separate rooms.

The Gloria Palace San Agustin is composed by a massive 9 levels building, shaped as a circle and offering 448 rooms. Open from 8.00am to 8.00pm, the three pools offer a large choice of bathings. A first pools 67 inches deep placed side by side with a kids pool of 18 inches depth, a larger second pool of 60 inches depth located a little bit higher and embellished by a bar, and a third pool ideally located on the roof, where there is also a nudist area. The panoramic terrace offers an impregnable view on the sea-side resort, the Maspalomas dunes and the ocean. You can admire this view from the à la carte panoramic restaurant. These three pools are surrounded by big solarium decks and others smaller and more private. For your convenience, there are lots of beach chairs, sunshades and also showers and toilets. But the main attraction of the Gloria Palace San Agustin is undeniably its thalassatherapy center Talasoterapia Canarias, located right close by the hotel. Built in 1998 on a surface of 73,200 square feet, this is one of the biggest centers in Europe, offering 35 massage cabins and being able to accommodate up to 300 clients a day! The original architecture of the building is a real success, with a gigantic glass roof that offers daylight, a work of the notorious Canarian architect Luis Lopez. Open from 10.00am to 9.00pm, the center offers notably relaxation practices with 29 hydro-massage stations and all kinds of cares and thermal treatments, with treatments from 2 to 12 days. The different massages given reveal themselves to be divine, a foretaste of paradise. The center contains two ayurveda massage saloons perfectly decorated in Indian style, with a relaxing atmosphere.

Covered with marble and nicely decorated with wooden furniture, the spacious rooms of the Gloria Palace San Agustin are practical and they offer two separate beds, a satellite TV (20 channels), a safe with electronic code (?2.30 or £2 per day), individual air-conditionning, a direct international telephone line as well as a Wifi connection, a refrigerator and a large balcony fitted out with a dryer overlooking the pool or the mountain. The bathroom, very clean and made of marble, has a bathtub with handle and flexible shower, toilets, welcome products, a hair dryer, handkerchiefs and a make-up mirror. Located at the verge of the hallway, the 16 junior suites are larger and offer bathrobes. Finnaly, 86 familial rooms are especially adapted for families, with two separate rooms, one with two beds for kids and another one including a double bed for parents.

The buffet-restaurant of the Gloria Palace San Agustin, of an accommodation capacity of up to 480 guests, serves breakfast from 7.30am to 10.30am, lunch from 1.00pm to 3.30pm and dinner from 6.30pm to 9.30pm. Do not miss out the paella night that is held once a week! You should also try the Gorbea resataurant that offers à la carte cuisine as well as Basque specialities, accessible by a panoramic elevator. Open only for dinner, you are welcome on reservation only. Located on the 9th floor, the restaurant offers a very nice view on the ocean and on the Maspalomas dunes. The occasion to taste a crayfish and scampi salad, asparagus stuffed with seafood and salmon, a hot pepper turbot sauce, a beef fillet with a Roquefort sauce or lamb chops "à la Segovienne"... You can also eat at the pool snack bar from 10.00am to 6.00pm. Besides the pool bar, you can try your favorite cocktails at the Gorbea bar located on the 9th floor and at the salon bar, in a musical atmosphere from 8.00pm to 2 in the morning.

The small Playa San Agustin is located 1,900 feet from Gloria Palace San Agustin. A shuttle drops the clients for free on the beaches of Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles, from 9.30am to 4.30pm. These beaches are enormous! Made of fine sand, you can still find a few pebbles here and there. Supervised from 10.00am to 5.00pm, they are equipped with sunshades, beach chairs and showers. In the background, you can admire the surprising dunes of Maspalomas, a real small piece of Sahara, ranked as natural reserve.