Amy Adejokun
Section editor
If you want to spend active holidays, you should choose this very conventional hotel, half-way between the club-hotel and the animated hotel. It offers lots of sports activities and games, on the site or on the verge of the sea.
The Don Miguel hotel is located on the heights of Marbella, 20 minutes away by foot from downtown (1 mile). Sport lovers can choose between the closest golf (5.5 miles) or the facilities of the Atalaya Park (9 miles) if they want to practice their favorite activity. You will spend about 40 to 55 minutes for transfers from the airport depending on traffic (28 miles).
The rooms are well soundproofed thanks to an entrance that separates it from the corridor, this is not the case for the communicating rooms. With an appropriate size (301 ft²), the rooms are both sober and elegant, painted in warm colours and decorated with varnished wood furniture, matching the waterborne hardwood floor. In return, the bathrooms are little old-looking with their red linoleum. Their amenities are classic: bathtub, double-washbasin, hair dryer and foam soaps. An area, closed by a glass door, houses toilets and a bidet. All the rooms are air-conditioned and equipped with a mini-bar, a safe (paying), a telephone with international line and a satellite TV. Two large glassed-in windows open on a large balcony offering a view of the sea or the mountain.
You can't miss the Don Miguel hotel and its impossing 9-level building, shaped as a star. This establishment, built in 1974, is very large, starting with the lobby and the number of elevators (6), the pool (more than 10,760 ft²) and the surface of the gardens (12.5 acres). Even though it is large, the building is still charmless, it is not very friendly, you can feel even an icy ambiance. Also, the materials are not very warm (marble, glass) and the empty spaces are rarely fulfilled. On the other hand, the Don Miguel offers a maximum of services and facilities. It specially houses a shopping centre including an small art shop, a hairdresser and a small bazaar. On the first basement, you can enjoy an indoor pool, two jacuzzis and a beautiful fitness room. The hotel offers a small gym centre with 4 saunas and hammams. outside, the park of the hotel is fitted out with walkways where a small artificial river meanders, waterfalls and a pool where ducks paddle. Unfortunatly, the green areas are quite bad-maintained and the park could have been more attractive.
The buffet-restaurant of the hotel is a large dining-room divided in two parts: one is reserved for groups, the other one for individuals. Because of this, you can eat without being disturbed by the noise of the large tables of people. The lunch and dinner buffets are classic with a decent choice of starters (plus a dozen of mixed salads and raw vegetables), warm dishes and desserts (pastries and petit fours, fresh fruits or in syrup, or cooked in oven). A very rare thing in Costa del Sol, note that: fresh fruit juice is offered for breakfast. In the evening, you can also take your dinner in the panoramic restaurant, located on the last floor of the hotel. You will though have a choice between a menu and two paying guest menus (French and international cuisine for one of them, Italian cuisine for the other). The menus are renewed every fifteen days or every month depending on the season. Finally, in summer, you can always take a snack at the snack-bar near the pool. Be aware that if you spend your day at the Atalaya Park, you should pay your meal, even if you are in full board at the Don Miguel.
You will be able to take free advantage of the beach-club of the Atalaya Park. Otherwise, the Playa de la Venus is the closest public beach from the hotel (1 mile). This is a downtown beach 1,640 ft long, covered by black sand. It is clearly very visited in summer. Here you can also find showers, beach chairs and mattresses for rent, a snack bar as well as a boat club to practice different non-motorised sports like pedalo or windsurfing. The beach is supervised in summer. Since the surroundings are very urban and noisy, you should get the bus if you want to sunbathe on more peaceful beaches. If you feel that you would like to try water skiing, jet skiing or upward parachuting, you should go to the Funny beach, the big boat club of Marbella, located at the city entrance (1.5 miles away).
The Don Miguel is halfway between the club-hotel and the animated hotel. While the animators are not really numerous, there are multiple possibilities for activities and shows. A mini-club also welcomes children aged 4 to 12, all year long, from 10:30 AM to 1 PM and from 4 PM to 6 PM. The clients of the hotel will also have the opportunity to enjoy the facilities of the Atalaya Park, free of charge, a club-hotel belonging to the same hotelier group, located 9 miles away from here. Three shuttles per day connect the Don Miguel to the Atalaya Park.
massage, beauty salon, sauna, hammam, stretching, keep fit
tennis, water skiing, gym, aqua gym, aerobics, football, volleyball, beach volley, basketball, golf, (nearby), mountain bike, jet ski, sailing, paddle boats, canoe, dance, step, archery, badminton, (2 courts), fitness
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