Seaside Grand Hotel Residencia is the grown-up luxury address of the south: 94 rooms and suites in two-storey, colonial-style villas in the palm grove of the Maspalomas oasis, a short walk from the dunes beach. The Hamburg builder Theo Gerlach, founder of Seaside Hotels, opened it in April 2000, and the villas were laid out so that none of the palms had to be felled. The Paris decorator Alberto Pinto did the interiors in teak, warm colours and hand-painted Portuguese tiles. It is classified five-star Gran Lujo, the top grade in the Canary Islands, belongs to The Leading Hotels of the World and holds one MICHELIN Key.
Every room is in the villas, on the ground or first floor, with a screened balcony or terrace over the gardens or the pool, and none faces the sea. The entry Twin Room is about 33 m², with a garden view by the entrance. The Superior and Deluxe Rooms are 37 m² with a walk-in whirlpool bath and two basins, the Superior over the gardens or on the dunes side, the Deluxe over the pool. Above them come 17 Junior Suites of about 50 m², three Master Suites of 66 m² and one Presidential Suite with a private garden of about 400 m², a hot tub and a fire pit. Rooms are made up twice a day.
Its strength is how completely it does the quiet version of Maspalomas. Breakfast is served on the raised restaurant terrace, which looks over the palm-lined pool and the villas, with the mountains of the interior beyond. The main pool is heated saltwater, at about 27°C, with loungers enough for every guest. The spa adds a saltwater thalasso pool with jets, a Finnish sauna, a steam room under a starry ceiling and a salt cave, all free to guests. At night Wolfgang Grobauer, who held MICHELIN stars in Hamburg and Corsica before he arrived in 2011, cooks a light, French-leaning Mediterranean menu that holds a Repsol Sol, with barbecue buffets on Wednesdays and Sundays and live music on the Piano Bar terrace until eleven.
The trade is the view and the formality. No room looks at the sea and the cheapest sits by the entrance, so budget for a Deluxe Room. In high season, when winter sun is the point, the hotel usually asks for a minimum stay of a week, and at dinner men need long trousers and closed shoes. It takes children, with a baby pool and cots, but has no kids' club of its own. Book it as a couple for a week of winter sun, with the beach on foot and no need to think about where to eat.
