At the end of a very tough, two-year sojourn in Paris and just before embarking on the logistical nightmare of relocating to New York, my husband and I booked a (too short) one-week holiday. We were celebrating the end of my difficult and disappointing job as well as the fact that he’d just written the hardest exam of his life.

We had planned to go to the Canary Islands last year but had to cancel the trip when my mother suddenly became ill and then died. So we decided to revive and revise the plan. We had heard horror stories about the “package holiday hell” that is Tenerife, but decided to risk it because: (a) it was a relatively inexpensive trip on British Airways in Club Europe (business class) – readily available reward ticket for my husband and a 160-tier point earning trip for me to help me retain Gold status for another year; (b) there is supposed to be some decent scuba diving; and (c) the new Sheraton La Caleta in Adeje, Tenerife, was offering an excellent rate on a Club Level Room if you booked for a full week.

Our journey did not start off well. We travel a lot, and my husband is accustomed to me wanting to get to the airport early. We left our apartment in the 16me arrondissement in Paris 2.5 hours before our flight. Normally, this is more than enough time to find a taxi and make the 35 minute journey, since we can check in quickly at the Club Europe desk. This time, however, we couldn’t find a taxi anywhere. We hopped on the bus, which would take us to Porte Maillot, where we thought we’d have better luck finding a taxi (or could take the Air France shuttle bus) but landed immediately in a massive traffic jam. The journey to Porte Maillot, which ordinarily takes 15-20 minutes, stretched to 45 minutes. At Porte Maillot, we lucked out and scored a taxi but then faced more slow-moving traffic all the way to the airport. We hadn’t realised that the Paris Airshow was going to create such a traffic snarl. In total, it took almost 2.5 hours to reach the airport and by the time we reached the check-in desk, they’d closed our flight.

We asked to be put on the next flight but were told that because my Club Europe ticket was a heavily discounted I class fare, we could only be put on the standby list. If we made the next flight, we would still have enough time to get from Heathrow to Gatwick where our flight to Tenerife left, but if we were delayed much more than that, it would be touch and go.


Having learned a few lessons in our two years in France, I did my best to engage the check-in agent’s sympathy, telling her (in French) that this was supposed to be a special celebratory trip to relax after a difficult year blah blah. The check in agent actually smiled, mentioned that she recognised me (I’ve flown on BA out of CDG about 4 times in the past few months) and said that she hoped we made it. We crossed our fingers and headed to the lounge for a quick coffee. At the desk, we encountered an Aussie businessman who seemed to be quite miffed to discover that his Cathay Pacific elite card was not going to provide him with access to the jointly operated BA/Air France lounge. The lounge “dragon” told him that it was an Air France lounge that BA had an arrangement with, not a Oneworld lounge with which Cathay had an arrangement. I decided it was a good time to accumulate some karma points, so I told the agent that the gentleman was my guest, so she grudgingly let him in.

After relaxing for 15 minutes in the lounge, we decided to make our way to the fast bag drop, where we’d been advised to go to inform the BA agent that we were standing by. I don’t know if it was my earlier story, the karma points or (more likely) my Gold BAEC status, but we were called first when some seats opened up (in Club Europe, too) on the next flight.

We breathed a sigh of relief, joined the mammoth queue to go through security into the gate lounge … and then waited, and waited and waited.

There was no BA plane. The plane parked at our gate was going to Sofia. No announcements, no explanations, just half an hour of bilingual grumbling and confusion. Finally, a BA plane arrived – but parked itself at another gate and unloaded passengers. To say that I was getting worried was an understatement. Finally, however, someone opened up a door connecting the two gate lounges and we were told to move to the other gate and, shortly thereafter we boarded the plane. And waited, and waited and waited some more.

More nail biting. More calculations as to the amount of time needed to get from LHR to Gatwick at what was starting to approach rush hour. Finally, we took off and, miraculously, had a quick flight over without any significant delay at LHR. We landed, raced for Customs & Immigration and, for once, there was almost no line up. We headed down to the baggage area … and waited, and waited, and waited. Every few minutes, a disconcertingly apologetic announcement w\s made about the fate of passengers’ baggage from other flights, along the lines of “We are so sorry that passengers from the Seattle/Baku/Vienna flight have had to wait so long for their baggage but an investigation is underway to determine where the bags are …” Forty minutes later, our bags finally arrived and we ran to the bus terminal to catch the express coach to Gatwick. We weren’t permitted to board the first bus because the baggage hold was full but got on a bus that arrived ten minutes later. We crossed our fingers and hoped that the traffic was light and, finally, we caught a little luck. The traffic was light and we got to Gatwick with time to spare. We had to stop at Ticketing to get ourselves re-checked in for our flight (we were offloaded when we missed our flight earlier in the day) but there was almost no line and we were able to go to the head of Fast Bag Drop because the Ticketing agent check us in and tagged our bags for us.

Then, it’s off the First Class Lounge and a well-deserved glass of champagne (or two) before we boarded our flight to Tenerife.

The flight itself was uneventful. We landed about 11 pm, our bags arrived quickly and we grabbed a taxi for the 15 minute ride to the Sheraton. Taxi fares are fixed by zone, so there was no haggling or worry about being overcharged.

Check-in at the hotel was smooth and we were very pleased with the room we were given. It was on the quiet side of the hotel (not facing the pools), on the top floor with a large angled balcony facing the ocean. The room was very large, with good closets and the marble-clad bathroom was almost as large as the bedroom, with a separate bath, enclosed walk-in shower and a separate room for the toilet.

Dehydrated from the flights (and champagne en route), my husband downed a few glasses of tap water (I drank the diet cokes I’d smuggled out of the BA lounge) and then we went to bed immediately, because we had to get up early to be ready for our ride to the dive shop at 8:30.

Little did we know that drinking tap water would come back to haunt us, nor that we would come to appreciate the spacious, well-appointed and conveniently divided-up bathroom …

We dragged ourselves out of bed early the next morning. Thankfully, our room rate included breakfast and the Sheraton’s buffet was splendid. There were so many tasty items to choose from, it was very hard to stick to a diet. Adequately caffeinated, we packed our dive bags and headed out to the parking lot to wait for our ride to the dive centre. Bang on time, a tiny car emblazoned with ads for a pizza and Indian food delivery service showed up. Our driver, Taz, one of the dive centre’s employees, also moonlights as a pizza/Indian food delivery man.

Our fifteen minute ride to the dive centre (Atlantic Divers) revealed a charm-free landscape of hideous hotels and apartment buildings spread out over the hills, like concrete barnacles. We hoped that Tenerife underwater was more attractive than above sea level.

The dive shop owner (Geoff) was friendly and helpful. Soon, we were kitted out in worn but functional gear. The truck was loaded up and we drove down to the harbour, a few minutes away. There was no dock, so we waded into the water and helped load up the RIB (rigid inflatable boat), a tricky exercise as the rocks beneath our feet were quite slippery. Then it was a quick ride (about 10 minutes) to our dive site. The group divided into two sub-groups, with a few divers choosing to a deeper and more challenging dive in a stronger current and the rest of us choosing a shallower dive with a milder current. It was great to get underwater again (our last dive trip was to Oman in March 2006), even though there was much less to see underwater in terms of flora and fauna than in Oman.

After we finished our dive, we headed back to shore and took a break at the marina, where we could have a snack and watch the waves. The restaurant staff were friendly (and didn’t mind the fact that their customers were soaking wet), but the restaurant strip again reminded us of the worst stories we’d heard about Tenerife: e.g. fried, cheap food and vast quantities of beer being consumed loud, large and sunburned customers wearing too little clothing. After our break, we headed back out for the second dive of the day.

The day’s diving completed, we were driven back to the shop, where we rinsed our gear and ourselves and dried off as best we could. The owner drove us back to our hotel, where we proceeded to take full advantage of our splendid bathroom, which was well-designed for divers (i.e. dive kit rinsed in the bathtub, while divers clean up in the separate shower), and our balcony (large enough to lay out our gear to dry).

After a nap to recover from diving, we dressed up a little for the fun of it and headed down to the Club Lounge to try out the appetizers and drinks. There was a good selection of nibblies, and cava (Spain’s sparkling wine) was on offer. We did such a good job tidying up the appetizer trays, there wasn’t much room left for dinner, so we decided to eat at one of the hotel’s restaurants, where we were satisfied with soup. We also ordered bottled water, after our request for tap water (which we always ask for in French restaurants) resulted in a senior waiter coming out to tell us that it wasn’t a good idea to drink tap water in Tenerife since it might make us ill. Uh oh.

Diving makes us tired, so we fell asleep not longer afterward. At least for a few hours …

I woke up a few hours later to the unmistakable sounds of my husband being very, very sick in the bathroom. Actually, the sounds were somewhat muffled, since the bathroom was so large and had a separate room for the WC. He was sick again a few more times, up until about breakfast time, and then fell asleep, exhausted. Before he fell asleep, though, he insisted that he felt better, that he just needed to sleep and that I should try to enjoy the day as much as possible. It was difficult to leave him alone, but I did want to let him relax and sleep, so I went out a few times (e.g. to breakfast, to the gym, to the lounge and to a shop to buy juice and crackers) but spent most of the day on our balcony. When he woke up, he had some yogurt and apple juice and seemed better, albeit tired and weak.

Around 5:30 pm, I called Housekeeping and explained that my husband was sick but would it be possible for someone to come and clean the room as late in the day as possible. They said they could send someone at 6 pm and the woman who cleaned our room the day before showed up on time. She asked (in Spanish) after my husband and said that she was sorry to hear he was sick. She quickly and thoroughly cleaned the less than clean bathroom top to bottom, changed the bedding, washed the tile floor and left us a couple of extra bottles of water (Club Rooms usually get two bottles per day; she gave us four).

Earlier in the day, while my husband was sleeping, I went down to the front desk to try to find out more about the water issue. The front desk manager said that the tap water in Tenerife is “potable” but not pleasant to drink and that its high mineral content disagrees with some people, and can result in “turista”. In retrospect, we have some doubts as to whether it was the tap water my husband drank at the hotel that made him sick. After all, he drank it more than 24 hours before he got sick. We mostly ate the same food on our first day in Tenerife (and the day before), but he ate more of certain things than I did. It’s also quite possible that he got sick because of something related to our diving (if the tap water isn’t clean, what’s the sea water in the less than clean harbour like? and how healthy is it rinse dive equipment in tap water and then put some of that equipment in your mouth?) or that he simply had a bug that manifested itself once we arrived in Tenerife.

Regardless of whether or not it was the tap water that made my husband sick, I wish that the hotel staff had been clearer on check-in (or in the hotel services book) that we should drink the bottled water they provided and avoid drinking the tap water. I realise that this is a sensitive subject for hotel management, but there must be a way to tactfully communicate this kind of recommendation. We were lucky that my husband is ordinarily very healthy and that he recovered quickly. But what if it had been a child, or someone with a weaker system, who got sick? It is conceivable that the experience could have been quite frightening and that someone might have blamed the hotel, once they learned that the tap water could cause turista.

Sorry to hear about the tummy problems. I don't know Tenerife, but have stayed on La Palma a few times. The water there is heavily chlorinated and so everyone drinks bottled water. It is due to the transport system they have for water. I suspect it is the same on Tenerife.
Should you fancy the Canaries again I know of a casa which has diving available on La Palma. La Palma is a much greener, less touristy island than Tenerife. http://tinyurl.com/2wrav4 is the webpage for the Casa. I haven't stayed there but have used the agency.