Rock of Gibraltar Stay

 As part of our two-week family holiday in August 2017 we travelled to the Gibraltar for a three-night stay.

I had previously visited Gibraltar around 15 years ago as a day trip and thought it would be great to pay a return visit as a family rather than a couple.

We arrived in Gibraltar on a Sunday afternoon after a 1.5-hour drive in our hire car down the coast from Mijas. The border queues into Gibraltar were not too bad and were only hampered by the runway being closed to allow two different aircraft to take off – as the runway spans the main road into Gibraltar after clearing the border and customs then this is a common occurrence!

We stayed for three nights at the 4* O’Callaghan Elliott hotel which is currently undergoing a multi-million-pound refurbishment. Hotel options in Gibraltar and very limited and this hotel is THE most central hotel in Gibraltar in my opinion, being on Governor’s parade off the main pedestrianised shopping street. We had booked a junior suite for three nights but we were lucky enough to be upgraded to the Victoria suite 106 which consisted of a large lounge with dining table and separate bedroom and bathroom, it was easily able to accommodate two extra single beds in the lounge for our girls plus a small den bed which they had added in case Freya, our 6-year-old, wanted to “camp out” in the lounge, all topped off with a welcoming bottle of Prosecco.

The day after our arrival we made our way to the cable car to take the trip “up the rock” to see the Macaques.

My top tip for this is to pre-book your cable car tickets and, if you can, arrive before it opens. Even with pre-purchased tickets and arriving around 10.30am, the queue for the cable car was around 1.5 hours with people who hadn’t purchased tickets queuing for around 2-2.5 hours!

Another alternative would be to take a taxi/mini-bus up the rock and take the cable car down as there were no queues coming down for the cable car.

The girls loved the cheeky macaques – daddy not so as they kept jumping onto his shoulders to try and see if there was food in the rucksack! As well as the top of the rock and apes den there are also St Michaels caves that you can access for an additional fee and there’s a small skywalk due to open in the coming months too for those that don’t have a fear of heights!

We thoroughly enjoyed our day up the rock, with the highlight being the cable car journey and the apes!

On the following days in Gibraltar we did some shopping (duty free is very cheap) and some further sightseeing with a half day on the beach at Catalan bay where the girls enjoyed wave jumping, collecting the most amazing shells and rock-pooling too.

In the evening’s we took in the most amazing sunsets from restaurants at Queensway Quay and we also loved the waterfront with family favourites like Wagamama.

It’s also worth checking out the 5* hotel there converted from a ship – Sunborn Yacht hotel.

We loved our four days in Gibraltar with the history, the tunnels, the rock, the beaches, the fabulous waterfront marinas and quays and the wonderful restaurants we had the pleasure of dining at.

I would definitely like to return again, even as a short break, as there are now many regular flights into Gibraltar from lots of UK regional airports.