By: Serenity Pearlman
Beaches, Food, Travel, , ,

A Weekend in Mogan

Vol.33

Quick facts

Fun meter: Awesome
Location: Gran Canaria
Adventure: Travel
Type: Cute Beach Town
Time: How ever long you like
Level of difficulty: The easiest in the world
Good for what ages: All ages
Cost: Free or Not Free

Overview

Of all the sheltered white sand beaches, you had to walk into mine </end dad joke… I don’t get it>. The south of Gran Canaria has a whole bunch of public beach resort towns. Mogan, Amadores, Anfi are all super kid fun. Check out the sand dunes at Playa del Ingles for a more natural place. But there is nothing natural about this beach.

We spent the weekend of spring break in Mogan. It has a REALLY great beach and town for us kids to play. The Radisson Blu resort was super kid focused, with sports and games and bouncy houses, which was pretty great. The town is so freaking cute. Mom says it is like a tiny Venice. There are tons of restaurants on the beach but they were kinda touristy and not super yum. The good ones are inland.

We also did an epic hike to the cave of silence, but decided to make it a full on article.

Mogan Beach

Sojourn isn’t the biggest fan of the water. I think he was a cat in his last life. Getting him wet takes just the perfect day and perfect place. The beautiful sheltered beach at Mogan does it every time. There are little kids everywhere, and I mean literally EVERYWHERE!!!. It is almost always sunny and warm in the south. Mogan is hidden in a valley which protects it from the wind. That doesn’t mean that the water isn’t cold, but I still could go in just a swimsuit in spring. But mom won’t get in (dad says that her heater is broken) and Sojourn normally wants his wetsuit. But not this time! Sojourn’s classmate came, and brought his twin toddler brothers. We built sand forts, played keepaway and it was great for the boys.

It is a small beach and fills up fast. When the tide is high it gets hard to find a good spot with a lot of space. Kind of a big deal now with Covid. We had to move up on the beach three times because the tide kept coming up, which you can imagine mom loved. 

I LOVED playing volleyball in the water. The beach is shallow and all sand, so no rocks to hurt my toes. I bring my own volleyball in the water and we practice passing it back and forth and I can do big dives for it without getting hurt.

The main reason I go to the beach is to swim, I love to feel the cold water on my skin and to go underwater. I just feel like I don’t have a care in the world. On one side of the beach there are a bunch of rocks that are fun to climb on. But watch out for the crabs!! Crabs are kind of like spiders of the sea. And I HATE spiders. Dad and I would walk to the rock, climb on them and then swim back in. The swim across the cove takes less than 5 minutes. 

Every so often there would be a couple small waves from the jet skis people rented or the banana boat floaty. That looked pretty fun but we haven’t tried it yet. The paddle boats with slides are the best, but kinda pricey. But so worth it if you can convince your parents. 

The Beach Village of Mogan

Right next to the beach is a cute village. Mom says it looks just like a tiny Venice Italy, with canals and flowers everywhere. Dad says it is not like Venice at all, because Venice stinks and smells like garbage and is crowded and is sinking into the ocean. Guess it depends on who is telling the story.

Dining In Mogan

On the wharf are a bunch of touristy restaurants. We tried one, and it was okay, but really weren’t my favorite. People told us that the really good restaurants are up the hill. We didn’t go to the crazy fancy one, Restaurante Los Guayres, that dad wanted to try. It has a Michelin tire star. What a tire company knows about good food is beyond me. We didn’t have fancy clothes and weren’t sure if Sojourn was ready for a fancy fancy restaurant.

We got a reservation and went up to a really tasty restaurant, Valle de Mogan Restaurant, in the mountains of Mogan. It was a 10 minute drive. It was way fancy.  It fills up real fast, and we watched them turn people away, so make sure to make a reservation. It has a nice view, and super fun pretty dishes. I love going to restaurants but they are never open during our normal dinner time at 6pm. Who the heck takes kids to a restaurant at 9pm at night?!? My favorite dish was the sashimi, and dad LOVED the pork belly. The curry dish was pretty great. Oh and chocolate lava cake… enough said. They were super nice to us. You should definitely go.

Tea or Coffee? A Windmill in the Mountains

A little up into the mountains, just before Mogan Town is a windmill right on the road. There are a bunch of art sculptures of huge, weird coffee machines. Be careful of the plants when climbing on the dirt piles. I fell down and a bunch of mini poky plants got stuck to my dress and hurt. The windmill was closed because of covd, but I think normally you can go inside.

The Resort 

We stayed at a hotel called the Radisson Blu. It was an awesome place. There were kids literally everywhere. It is kid paradise and reminds me of summer camp. They have tons of activities. It is pretty easy to make friends there. This is definitely not a peaceful hotel for someone looking for a quiet weekend. 

They have tenis, football (soccer), basketball and volleyball courts. Pingpong, table hockey and other games. We didn’t go to the kids camp activities, but there were many. There are three pools. Sojourns favorite was a pool for little kids with a jumpy trampoline. My friends and I convinced the lifeguard to let us jump for 5 min every so often. 

The buffet has so many options. I can’t believe how many times I went back to try something else. Dad says its was fine, but not special. I think he is picky. They had singers and music at night until 10pm, and it was so bad it hurt just a little. I wish they would stop earlier. All in all, I would totally stay here again.