Benidorm Seriously!!: Buying a hotel in Europe's No1 tourist resort, what could go wrong!

By Tony Harrison

Leaving the dull grey skies of the U.K. and an incredibly angry ex-girlfriend, I escaped to Europe’s No1 tourist resort, Benidorm, to start a new life. Buying and running a gay hotel in the old town was something that I never expected to do, over the next few years, I witnessed the crazy, strange, and downright bizarre behaviour of tourists and hotel guests. From gangsters to prostitutes, from chickens to S&M my life would never be the same or normal. This book is dedicated to all those that love Benidorm and all those that have ever wondered what it would be like to run a business in Spain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Harrison
• Release date: Oct 16, 2020

Book preview

Tony Harrison

Benidorm Seriously!!

Buying a hotel in Europe's No1 tourist resort, what could go wrong!

Chapter 1

Where are you the text message read. It was a regular and anticipated message which we receive every week at 6.30 pm as we walk from our apartment on Poniente Beach in Benidorm to the old town to meet everyone for Monday Club at Brief Encounter, a small bar owned by Andy and Trevor. Where were we? In a small clothes shop where Jane or Mrs. H as she is known around the old town was looking at shirts to compliment her ever-increasing cowgirl collection. Mrs. H has a second sense that can spot a shirt, blouse, gypsy dress, or boots from several miles away and I am an unwilling participant in this daily ritual, like most husbands I nod, gesture, and make all the right noises to expedite the task in hand in order to get to the bar and sink a very cold pint.

Monday Club has become a tradition and club members rock up to Brief at 6.00 pm when the bar is opened by Kev who is married to Dan: the sender of the where are you message. Both are long term friends who used to own a late-night bar called 7th Heaven which was a den of smuttiness, debauchery and was bloody good fun, it also happened to be one of my local bars having been opposite my old apartment. Kev now works the bar, in Brief, welcoming the early punters whilst Dan helps with glass collecting, cleaning, and chatting to the customers. Monday club is a chance for locals to catch up, moan, laugh, and more importantly get pissed before they open their bars or go to work in one of the thousand-odd bars in Benidorm. On this particular day the usual suspects are already there, Dennis the Enforcer who now in his autumn years has mellowed however be warned, he sits up in the Royal Box and when he nips out for a fag do not ever sit on his stool. Dennis comes across as a gentle and kind guy underneath his hat is the grim reaper who will break bones and grind them up to use in one of his fantastic meat pies; you have been warned. The boys from Bar Code will be there with their turbocharged shopping trolley, the trolley is something of beauty and reminds me of a sparkling 1980's XR3 with stripes and flames down the side; something of envy which both Trevor and Eddie guard like a new-born baby. Before you judge and mock let me explain the wisdom of a shopping trolley; The vast majority of people in Benidorm live in apartments and the daily or weekly trek to the local supermarket is an arduous journey, especially when you have litres of bottled water, milk, and veggies. Those in the know like the Bar Code boys invested in the daddy of shopping trolleys and we stand there at Monday club admiring this canvas beauty with sighs of admiration like Jeremy Clarkson does when he looks at a Bugatti on Top Gear.

As the sun goes down and a few pints later Briefs owner Andy shows his face, known as Shrek, he is a big lump of a man who despite appearances is a raving queen who is happily married to Anibal, a chef at Cava Aragonesa the tapas bar a couple of doors down. Andy, like all good landlords, spends the next few hours taking the piss out of all his punters and shoving extraordinarily large measures down all their throats. It is great to see the customer care course wasn't wasted on him.

So, Monday club is where I am now, but this story needs to be taken back a few years, a few characters, and a lot of bizarre moments. We need to go back to 2012 which is when I decided to make the move to Benidorm after several years of doing what the Americans call 'working for the man', I was feeling dissatisfied with my life and yearning for something more exciting. Like so many people I realised that getting up at the crack of dawn and coming home at 8 pm just to do the same thing wasn't pushing my buttons. Even the weekends had become the same tedious conversations; pubs had become boring with the same middle-aged guys moaning about their wives, jobs, children, and life. I could see the next 20 years of my life unfolding in front of me. God help me.

Having married young, fathering 2 boys, and then getting divorced in 2004 my life had followed a traditional path and now I was 45 years old and it was 2012; I needed to make changes. The sort of change I needed was a complete reinvention of my life, something that would give me new impetus and direction. For many of us, real change is something that normally involves relationships, work, or a house move; the problem with all of these is unless it moves you into a direction that challenges every part of you it is just transference and those issues that plague your soul just follow you. I have heard so many times you should move outside your comfort zone, look inside yourself and dig deep; I always thought this was a load of mumbo jumbo peddled by flaky yoga teachers who sit on top of mountains chanting, meditating, or some other weird spiritual nonsense. But I began to realise that it wasn't the mountain that mattered rather where the mountain was, it's easy to take the piss out of flaky yoga teachers but maybe they are on to something.

I knew that my move would be to Benidorm, this is a place I had visited since the early '80s, and whilst the usual sun, sea, and sand thoughts were appealing it was the community spirit that I liked. I know many people say it's Blackpool with the sun but I completely disagree with this, firstly and I apologize to anyone who lives in Blackpool but Benidorm is nothing like it; it's cleaner, prettier, and has a culture that is nothing like the northwest of England. Most jokes and slurs about Benidorm come from people that have never been there and have only ever watched programmes on TV about the new town and all the drunken stag parties. When you tell someone, you are going on holiday to Benidorm, initially, they laugh and then they look at you and say with an irritating smirk seriously??? Most people never see beyond the new town, they have never been to the old town and visited the incredible tapas bars, the wonderful restaurants, and more importantly, spent time with the gentle and friendly Spanish people that live and work in the resort. Benidorm has one huge advantage over other holiday resorts, it is a 12 month a year sunshine destination which is also a fully working town.

My life in Woking had been a mixture of work, chasing women, and looking after my teenage son Ryan. Work was running some guest houses that I owned with a mate and our esteemed guests were becoming stranger, most were referred by the local council so you can surmise that we were not a classy joint. I had become tired of dealing with shit which included finding a dead body in a room, one of the guests tried to murder the neighbour and the local Russian gangsters visited me as they were unhappy that one of our satellite buildings was being used as a brothel unbeknown to me. When you are told by 2 big guys in black suits to close your operation or else you tend to take notice. Secretly, I was quite proud that they considered me a pimp and a threat to their operation; I had to impart the bad news to the 3 Somalian girls who lived in the house. A few days later I received a call from the local council who asked me if I had a room, I did, so a couple of hours later a young woman knocked on the door and I let her in. I gave her a cup of tea and explained the rules of the house. As I took a sip of my tea I asked her what she did for a living and I was waiting for her to say that she was a waitress, shop worker, or something equally unglamorous; she looked straight at me and said I'm a dominatrix, I spat my tea all over her. We never got sweet old ladies, retired colonels, or young newlyweds; our guests were a little more colourful. The guest houses opened my eyes and ears to some of society's stranger elements, but they were lovely people, although I will draw the line at one particular guest. Early one morning there was a bang on the door whilst I was cooking breakfast, I rushed to answer it, who could be trashing on the door at 7 am? There stood 5 police officers who asked me if a particular gentleman was staying with us, I said yes, and they all went up the stairs and unnecessarily kicked in the gentleman's door and dragged him out of bed. He was put in the back of a police van and taken away, I was told by one officer he wouldn't be coming back so I then went to clear out his room and hidden under the wardrobe I found a big bag containing tens of thousands in cash. We held onto this bag and a few days later some very unsavoury and frightening looking guys turned up at the door, even more, menacing than the Russians they asked if we had found a bag in the bedroom, we happily handed it over and thankfully that was the end of the story.

Whilst I was dealing with Russian gangsters, Somalian prostitutes, and bags of dodgy cash I decided to get away for a few days, as it was January and I couldn't be arsed to go too far I settled on Benidorm. Over the years I have travelled a fair amount and enjoyed the solitude of traveling alone, so nipping over to Spain for a few days was a blessing. I had booked into the Bahamas Hotel which upon arrival turned out to be more like the Isle of Dogs rather than the Bahamas; however, I didn't care as I was there to catch some winter sun, drink beer and hopefully pull some birds. I had a fantastic week and achieved all my aims and even came back with a suntan, but more importantly, I came back with an idea, I just needed to run it past my son Ryan

Ryan knew that I had itchy feet and when I got back, I said to Ryan that I had decided and although incredibly selfish I needed to do it. Ryan looked at me with both trepidation and a sense of excitement. I said to him I have decided to move to Benidorm, I can't stand living here any longer and I need to change to my life and follow my dreams. I was expecting Ryan to say something like are you mad or what about me but nope; he said, when are we leaving? My heart could have exploded at that moment and I said to him as soon as we can get organised. Ryan jumped up, flew up the stairs, and started packing, that his excitement; I think like so many kids of his age they were lost and didn't want to grow up too quickly.

You would think that moving to a different country would be hard, but it is straight forward. I owned my own home in a highly desirable part of the southeast so renting it out was straightforward. We packed up clothes, tools,