Since the original article (below) was published in May 2014, summer has, of course, struck and the noise levels at this awful hotel have increased. Despite a letter to the manager, after which he apparently "tested noise levels" (but never actually bothered to reply), the noise has just continued unabated.
Anyone considering moving into Calle Poeta Salvador Rueda in Los Boliches, Fuengirola is highly recommended to avoid the street like the plague that it is.
And by the way, when I reach my 70s, and hopefully 80s, like the English guests who populate this equivalent of an English old age home or Butlin's holiday camp, please don't let me sit in a foreign country, eating greasy English breakfast and listening to endless English trivia quizzes? Rather shoot me first... OK?
Read on McDuff...
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The Hotel Yaramar, right on the beach in Los Boliches, Fuengirola in Spain is a great hotel - for tourists. For residents living in the area, it’s more like living behind a large and very noisy factory. While the hotel can make all that lovely loot from tourists, who cares about the locals?
In December last year, the owner of my previous apartment urgently needed to sell the property. I had two weeks to find a new home, and his real estate agents helped me.
The third apartment I looked at was really nice inside and was a few steps, literally around the corner, from the beach. What could I say? I was hooked. I did notice the back of the hotel across the road, but for some very strange reason, I thought that would be quieter, less overlooked and more private than having apartments opposite me.
Boy was I wrong!
Oh, yes, and you can actually hear the air-conditioning plant running 24 hours hours a day every day (you just have to tell yourself it's merely the sound of the sea). Oh, oh, and I forgot to mention you can hear them washing the plates after both breakfast and dinner - what they actually do to those plates, God alone knows.
Then the weather started warming up a couple of months ago. The sun came out, and so did all the British tourists. The hotel has a pool deck, which is directly up above and in front of me. Apparently, the British tourists are mainly of the older variety and love to lie around the pool, soaking up the sun and listening to English tour agents blabbing out endless general knowledge quizzes along with silly, almost childish, stories.
I am also of the older variety, but these quizzes bore the living daylights out of me, especially when blasting out at full volume, and echoing around the surrounding streets. In fact, anywhere in a six block radius, most days you can hear every question clearly and concisely. I sometimes wonder if all those tourists are stone deaf?
As a writer, I work from home and for the most part, need to concentrate. Try concentrating when all you can hear (with all doors and windows closed) is questions like, “Which nursery rhyme character had a little lamb” or "Who was eating her curds and whey when a spider came and sat down beside her" and other brain-stimulating questions.
I even pondered getting myself a megaphone, and answering the questions from my balcony (at full volume), just for fun.
However, over the last few months I have tried everything. I have phoned the hotel, I have emailed the hotel and I have even posted comments on their Facebook page (hoping to shame them a little). Occasionally, the volume goes down just a little, but gradually and over time it goes up to its normal blaring and extremely irritating levels. I even contacted Thomsons, the company who runs the English "entertainment," via their website and got absolutely zero response. I did later get a response from Thomsons' Facebook page, but as the people who messaged me were nothing to do with the hotel, this didn't help a bit.
I posted a glaringly bad review of the hotel on Tripadvisor and got the most pathetic response from Thomsons, where they said, basically, that I should have "done my homework" before moving there, that they have been running these quizzes for the last 14 years, and that they don't intend to stop. Really professional answer, guys. Really. No lack of "originality" there either, ROFLMAO. :)
It’s interesting to note that among the emergency numbers listed in the foyer of my building, Hotel Yaramar, has a prominent position, so I am probably not the first to complain. It's also interesting to note that I work in travel online, so my opinion of a hotel bears a little weight (haven't mentioned that to the hotel that though). My rating for this lovely four-star hotel is a good minus-three for disrespecting the locals and I removed all traces of it from any of my websites.
I anyway prefer not to offer this kind of all-inclusive, adults-only (ancient, not sexy, you understand) accommodation. According to other negative reviews, the food is apparently awful (skin on porridge, greasy burned bacon, etc.) and certain floors apparently smell a bit musty, among other things.
Not really surprisingly, there are very few apartments occupied on a permanent basis in the block behind the hotel. Only two in my block of eight apartments are occupied. Other blocks have maybe one apartment with someone there on a permanent basis. Other than that, they are used by holidaymakers, who really couldn’t give a damn as they are on the beach all day.
I hate to think what it all sounds like to a Spanish-speaking person. Basically all they would hear is “blah, bluh, blah, bluh” in a plummy English accent. At least I can understand the words – all of them, for the most part!
Noisy kids in the street, cars passing, dogs barking, the normal, every day sounds of life, are no problem at all. But these Thomson people must have been born to irritate. In Spain you can denounce people for noise pollution, but unfortunately only if said noise is after midnight.
I have even tried taking video footage to show them how bad it is, but my camera's microphone just isn't sensitive enough. However you can sort of get an idea from the video posted at the end of this article. In the video the male tour operator (who is the loudest of the lot) was telling the old dears a story about a duck, "quack quack quack." No lack of condescending attention there then. Quack, indeed.
As you may guess, come November when my contract comes up for renewal, the girl will be on the move yet again. But at least I will be able to take my time to find the perfect home.
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