Spending money for self catering Gran Canaria?

[Summertimesadnessie]

If you were going SC in GC, how much money would you budget for your food? 2adults 2 young children? Breakfast and the odd sandwich in the room and the rest of the time eat out.

How long are you going for? How much do you drink? Is this just for food or activities also?
You'll get such varied answers here. Partner and I have no children but spend on average €200 per day on food and drinks when away.

Just for a week. weve not booked yet, trying to work out if £1k self catering is cheaper than £1500 HB. Just a pool and beach hols, relaxing no real activities planned. We don’t drink either x

"€200 per day on food and drinks" are you living on caviar and champagne? If you are going self catering I would hit a supermarket for basics etc.

€200 per day on food and drinks" are you living on caviar and champagne? If you are going self catering I would hit a supermarket for basics etc

Absolutely not. But breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, cocktails and wine every day. Easily spend 100 per person per day.

Anyway op I think self catering is better and you could absolutely do the week with 1k for food!

Sounds like though HB might work out cheaper?

breakfast and dinner, then a light lunch to share and snacks from the shop?

Sounds like though HB might work out cheaper?

breakfast and dinner, then a light lunch to share and snacks from the shop?

It will make it easier not having to search for restaurants each night so if you want less faff and just want everyone fed, HB does sound like the best option though it can sometimes get boring and tedious by the 4th night so you may want to venture out for at least one dinner outside.

You can find restaurants to suit all budgets in GC to keep costs down.

I should have said, we only spend so much because we have every single meal out!

Even with soft drinks I would say it's quite easy to spend €70/day on dinner for 2x people. So that would be €500 across the week.

But for breakfasts and lunches you can get supples from the local supermarket that shouldn't cost another €500. A simple lunch at a local restaurant could be €20 for the two of you - in a hotel it could easily be double that.

HB will likely be cheaper but will the food be to your taste? If not, or the atmosphere isn't very nice (crowded buffet) it will spoil the holiday if this is important to you. You'll also likely have to pay for drinks at hotel prices if you go HB, which will bump up the cost.

If you SC, you can combine eating out with easy food such as BBQs or ready made food from the supermarket, keep stocks of drinks and snacks in and maybe also have lunch out, which could cost less than dinner.

Also if you do SC, see what supermarkets are nearby. We went to Maspalomas earlier this year and made the mistake of buying supplies at a convenience store because the proper supermarket, which was much cheaper was a 40 minute walk away and we didn't have a car. With hindsight, we should have made a trip there on day 1 for a proper shop and got a taxi back.

@FitAt50 just back from Greece B&B at approx €230 day for two adults. Imagine Canaries would
cost more.
A nice lunch and dinner out would cost more in
Uk

Could you go onto Google maps, check the names of some restaurants local to your hotel and then go onto their websites, take a look at their menus and base your sums off that?

We normally do AI so tbh, I’m not fussed as long as it’s edible lol.

we don’t drink alcohol so wouldn’t have to worry about that. Kids just drink water and the odd fruit shoot. So would probably have to venture out and get some crates of water as we always do.

tbh I’d probably skip lunch, would be just dh and dcs eating and we have early bird dinners for the kids.

the self catering flights and accommodation is £1k, another hotel (better) is 1.5k HB. I’m going for cost effectiveness lol x

I’m just back and we spent approx 60-100 per dinner for two adults and two dc…mains only usually and drinks. We went to the supermarket and bought ham, cheese and rolls etc for lunches we spent approximately 150ish doing that…maybe a bit more.

Depends on your expectations, you can certainly eat for less than £1000 but depends on your tastes. I would say £100 per evening meal but not including drinks (remember half board doesn't include drinks either). If you don't mind nightly buffet it is easier to go hv, or better still ai with kids

Your bigger issue is timing, restaurants open late in Spain, the hotel I was at last winter started dinner service at 7pm, much moaning especially from the many German families who wanted to eat earlier (doesn't bother us as we eat later, even when my kids were small never before 7.30 on holidays)

That depends on where it is. Many parts of Gran Canaria will have sufficient international tourists that there's demand all evening and kitchens will be open all day as just as they're finishing serving lunch to the Spaniards they'll have Germans and Brits turning up wanting dinner.

When we were there, we found 'early' closing more of an issue. If we were going out for dinner at 8/9 pm, a lot of places were starting to close up.

My adult DC have specifically asked to go SC rather than B&B this year on our week together because they want more space to chill and relax than a hotel offers.

I did notice last year how much price difference there was between different bars and cafes that were next door to each other. I started reading the menu before sitting down! (first abroad holiday post covid so I was out of practice) SC you don't have to go out for every meal if you don't want to which is nice.
The kids had a point about being cooped up in a hotel room, the space that can come with self catering works better for our family.

Another thought around self-catering is that when DC were young we enjoyed going out for a nicer lunch rather than dinner. It broke the day up, they were on better form at lunchtime when not so tired and would often have an afternoon nap giving us some time / peace at the pool for an hour.

We then just bought bread, cold meat, nice cheese, olives, nibbles that we could have in the evening. Didn't matter then if DC were tired and grumpy - we didn't have to try to drag them out to a restaurant at 7pm.