Spain - Ibiza

I have always wanted to go to Ibiza. I am not a club dude, but I would still argue that anyone would want to see the club capital of the world…and girls, there are supposed to be oh so many girls. It turns out I happen to like Ibiza quite a bit, but not for those reasons at all, not at all, well, maybe the girls. In fact, we were there during the opening of one of the biggest clubs, like one of the biggest nights of the year. We asked the concierge lady about it, she seemed very excited that people our age wanted to go, which made us excited. We said, what do you think about us getting there at 10 just to see the start of things and we can leave before things get too crazy. She sort of smiled, it doesn’t open until midnight she said. Ok, ok, fine. We’ll go at midnight just to get a taste. She laughed! A little too heartily I’d say! People don’t begin to arrive until 2am she said. 2AM!!! How on earth do they work! haha. Like that would be a concern! In any case, we had a fantastic night, and found ourselves nowhere near the entrance to that club at 2AM…lol.

The main part of Ibiza is Ibiza City. It is a pretty standard beach looking town honestly. They do have a castle on top of a hill in this area (their old town) but for the most part it’s dominated by pretty standard squares off of pretty standard streets. On some level, all of Ibiza is like this. You like to think that it’s a small island and everything is pretty close together but the cabs will prove you wrong again and again.

The Hard Rock is right in front of Bossa beach, which is sort of the main Ibiza beach and it goes all the way to Ibiza city. I enjoyed it because it had tons of activity and plenty of beach clubs and bars, but people in the know do not love it. It’s considered touristy…but isn’t that the point jackass? Tons of people, tons of bars.

We considered walking to Las Salinas (beach)…which is not a thing. After a very nice couple talked us out of this excruciating hike we took a cab. You get dropped off on a street that will remind you of any hippy beach town, but when you walk across this commercial stretch you hit a beach that’s much ritzier than expected. All of the restaurants are nice, and expensive. It is not wild, it is chill. Every table and daybed has champagne at it. I likey.

There is a nice walk from Las Salinas to the watch tower. It is rocky and hot, but the landscape is cool. Cliffs everywhere. Little beach coves everywhere. Nude sunbathers everywhere. We made it to the watchtower and kept walking to another beach that was supposedly nearby. It was not, and we almost succumbed to despair. When we finally made it to Cavallet we didn’t care that it appeared to be a gay nude beach, we just needed a cocktail! …poor choice of words perhaps. This beach has tons of nakedness and nice sand, but the shoreline itself was disgusting with mountains of sea leaves or something. At the end of the beach we decided to try and walk back to Salinas…I think maybe we had lost our minds. By the time we reached the salt flats and were ready to cry a single cab passed by us and took us back to our hard rock oasis. God bless that man.

Notes to self:

-We went to Es Canar (the Hippy Beach) but it was ridiculously far (and I mean like a 50 dollar cab ride far) and the market was mostly factory made crap. there were some “finds”, but man the current tenants have bastardized whatever the original intent was. I rarely feel bad for hippies, but they folks who started this must be spinning in their graves at what it has become. I will not be surprised if a McDonald’s opens across the street soon. All of that being said, the town is actually quite nice and quaint. Lot’s of cool shops and coastal action.
-We went to a great restaurant right on this quaint and gorgeous square (Passeig de Vara de Rey) in Ibiza town called Sa Brisa. Chef driven tapas styled stuff…sat on a gorgeous patio…really good job.
-Dinner at the sushi place in the Ushuaia Hotel (Minami) was complete shit. What a terrible job they did on all levels.
-Nothing is near anything, so while the Hard Rock is also not near anything, the hotel is bad ass so I was happy. Everything they did, from even offering the type of room we booked, to the room service, to the types of hotel restaurants, to the pool, to the beach club…was great.
-Watching the planes go in and out from a rooftop is pretty sweet. It’s not St Maarten, but they still get pretty damn close.

Hard Rock Hotel Ibiza - May 2015

This hotel is the jam.

It’s right on the airport end of Bossa Beach. Nowhere in Ibiza is truly a “great” location, but this was perfect for us. The beach bar and lounge area was Miami like and the walk from there up towards Ibiza town was lined with beach bars and clubs. Great stuff while still being headquartered in as calm a place as you want to make it (which can be quite the opposite of calm as well but we were there at the beginning of the season).

The hotel itself is massive, but nothing too unusual if you’ve seen anywhere like Cancun….or any other Hard Rock complex for that matter. The use of lighting and sound at Hard Rocks is always impressive. Their lobby areas don’t disappoint and are adorned with rock memorabilia. This place has numerous restaurants and bars and themes. The rooms are quite varied and I purposely did not choose the level above my room level because I liked my description more (I can almost never pass up a private jacuzzi). The level below had private, partially submerged pool chairs right in front of their rooms but I thought we would use those much less. Give me a birds eye view and some naked possibilities and I’m right at home.

Now, some simple things can just win my hotel heart…and here you get free daily giant bottles of water…loved them immediately. Though we were in a platinum rock star suite so maybe that changed things a bit. We had a giant patio (with chairs and a table) that had a spiral staircase leading to our even more giant patio area, complete with a large Jacuzzi and lay out area with chaise loungers. Room service was pricey as shit but so so good. Pay per view was great. No 24 hour action but it was basically 7 bucks for anything (I always wonder who the douche is that decides this movie costs more than that movie and so on). Mini bar was great and not terribly expensive. Shower was great but the toilet was a little too close to the bed (like right next to it).

You do have to walk up stairs to get to these rooms, but I’ll tell ya, we didn’t give a shit. That room was sick. We overlooked the main band stage area, the pool area, the ocean, and the entire resort really.

Overall, what I love about Hard Rock hotels is that they try to be young and sexy. They understand what your goals are while you’re there, and that is worth a lot of money…a lot.

Notes

-Service was top notch. They cleaned our jacuzzi without asking, even though we couldn’t figure out how to drain it. They came up to fix our bed lights (which were sick) in like 10 minutes.
-The fusion restaurant was very good.
-Rooftop bar (the ninth) was awesome (planes flying right over you). The drinks were expensive as fuck, but the place is huge and nice.
-Pool bar was cool (swim up but the water was fa-reezing), though it took forever to get a drink.