Gran Canaria: the resort that started the list
Lopesan Villa del Conde is the property this whole project was built around — a five-star resort that costs CHF 155 in the right week and CHF 338 in the wrong one.
Every list needs a benchmark, and ours is Lopesan Villa del Conde Resort & Thalasso from CHF 156. It is a five-star resort on the southern tip of Gran Canaria built as a replica of a Canarian village, with a domed church as the lobby. It is not subtle. It is also, in the right week, cheaper than a business hotel in Zurich.
We have looked it up forty-two times. The floor is CHF 155≈ €164 · $188 a night. The typical is CHF 213≈ €225 · $259. The ceiling is CHF 338≈ €358 · $411. Same room, same resort, more than double.
That spread is the entire thesis of this website. Nobody needs help finding a good hotel; they need help finding the week when the good hotel is affordable.
The three Lopesans are not interchangeable
They sit within a few hundred metres of each other and behave quite differently.
Lopesan Baobab Resort from CHF 143 is the wild one — an Africa-themed resort with a genuinely absurd waterfall atrium, and the widest price range we track here: CHF 142≈ €150 · $173 at its best, CHF 449≈ €475 · $546 at its worst, across thirty-seven checks. When it is cheap it is the best value on the island. When it is expensive it is nothing special.
Villa del Conde is the steadiest of the three and the one we would book blind.
Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort & Spa from CHF 193 is the biggest and, at CHF 192≈ €203 · $233 low and CHF 282≈ €298 · $343 typical, consistently the dearest of the trio despite being the least distinctive. It is the one we would skip.
A fourth, Seaside Grand Hotel Residencia from CHF 503 at Maspalomas, sits far above the others — CHF CHF 502≈ €531 · $610 at its cheapest, CHF 712≈ €754 · $866 typical. It is a lovely hotel. It is not what this site is for, and we keep it on the list only because its low season slips under our ceiling.
There is also Radisson Blu Resort, Gran Canaria from CHF 255 further west along the coast at Arguineguín, which runs on Radisson Rewards — the only rewards programme among the island hotels we track, and free to join. The three Lopesans have no scheme we have found; what they run instead is a permanent site-wide discount, which is the next thing to understand.
What to watch for when you book
The Lopesan engine runs a permanent percentage promotion, and it displays it in a way that is easy to misread. You will see something like "EUR 200.52 / night" next to "EUR 802.08" next to "−25%". The per-night figure is already discounted; the large number is the undiscounted total. Multiply the small one by your nights — do not pair the two.
The discount depth also moves. It was 30% in August and 25% in September. If a price looks 7% worse than last time you checked, that is usually the campaign changing, not the market.
The island beyond the pool
Gran Canaria is often described as a continent in miniature and for once the cliché holds: it is a volcanic cone roughly 50 km across that runs from Saharan dune fields in the south to laurel cloud-forest in the north, with a 1,949 m peak in the middle.
- The Maspalomas dunes — 400 hectares of protected shifting sand between the resorts and
- Roque Nublo, an 80-metre volcanic monolith near the island's centre, sacred to the
- Las Palmas — the capital, an hour north. The Vegueta old town is where **Columbus
- Teror, Arucas and the Caldera de Bandama inland, the last a 200-metre-deep
the sea, with a lagoon and the 1889 lighthouse at the western end. It is a nature reserve, not a beach extension: keep to the marked crossings.
pre-Hispanic Canarii. A straightforward 1.5 km walk from the car park, and on a clear day Mount Teide on Tenerife floats on the horizon behind it.
stopped in 1492** to repair the Pinta's rudder; the Casa de Colón occupies the governor's house he stayed in. Las Canteras beach in the same city is one of the best urban beaches in Europe.
volcanic crater you can walk into.
The drive worth hiring a car for
The GC-60 from Maspalomas up to Ayacata and Roque Nublo climbs from sea level into the pine forest in about an hour of switchbacks, passing Fataga — the "valley of a thousand palms" — and the Mirador de la Degollada de las Yeguas on the way. Come back down the west side through Mogán for the coast road. It is the single best day on the island and it costs the price of a hire car.
Go in November
The Canaries barely have a low season in the way northern Europe does — the weather in November is essentially the weather in June. What changes is who else wants to be there.
The cheapest nights we have found cluster in early November and late September, and the difference between those weeks and Christmas is more than a hundred francs a night.
The rest of the roll
Everything else we came back with from this trip — ours, taken on the days described above. Click any of them to see it properly.
