Albergue Font del Tarragó

Alfafara is beautiful and wonderfully cared for, and we’ll definitely come back to the village, just an hour from Alicante. The hostel’s location is great too, near a football pitch and well-marked PR trails. The bathrooms and showers were very well maintained, and the accessible room was useful for bathroom access. But getting a wheelchair under the bunk beds is difficult, which seems not to have been considered. The bunk beds are also very noisy. The common areas were decent, though the house itself was fine. The kitchen needs work. The pots, pans, and stovetop seemed suitable for only 10 people in a place with capacity for 60. The doors were coming off, and the stovetop barely worked even with the gas turned all the way up. We really missed having a barbecue area or something similar. There are no swings, either. The photo shows a stream running into a pool full of mosquito larvae. Adding fish to the pool would have been a nice touch and suited the hostel’s charm.

We stayed with our association over the weekend and really liked the place. It was tidy, clean, and very nice. A small table or chair in the rooms would have made getting dressed more comfortable. We did run out of water now and then. The owner said air gets into the pipes and stops the flow. When we called, he explained how to get it running again, so the service was very good.

We’ve been there four times, and the fourth visit cost us €260 over a refrigerator drawer they said had broken with age. We hadn’t photographed it when we arrived, so we had no way to dispute the damage. They also sent a picture of a cigarette butt, even though we left the place spotless. It was only one butt, the kind that sticks to any shoe, not a pile of rubbish. The other visits were bad too. On the second and third trips, no water came from the taps, so we bought 8-liter jugs for showers, dishes, and everything else. We didn’t complain or ask for compensation. On our first visit, they sold us a stovetop burner control button for €100, and it didn’t work. The stove itself is over 25 years old, and we let that go without complaining. They didn’t answer the phone all weekend while we were there. Anyone going should photograph all the hostel’s existing damage, because there’s a lot of it and they seem to charge unsuspecting guests for it bit by bit. I can’t believe they take us for fools. We’re a big group and have had more than 40 people on some earlier trips, yet they treat us like idiots.

The views from this place are spectacular. It’s lovely and spacious, and everything is in very good condition.