The Hotel Neptuno is one of the more typical Urbex type abandoned places to see on the island. When it closed in 2007, it had fallen into disrepair and was no longer favourable given the explosive growth of newer resorts in the south that were simply easier to get to.
Anyone who has driven in northern Tenerife will understand the lack of highways makes driving anywhere a lot longer and, frankly, much harder. Whilst a much needed new end-to-end highway is being built linking the island from north to south, this is some years off completion.
But the Neptuno has a proud history. It was one of the first hotels to capitalise under General Franco's well timed investment in the sun starved Northern European tourist, seeking guaranteed sunshine and benefitting from the rapid growth of foreign tourism in the 60's and 70's, largely fuelled by both a new generation of more liberal people as well as the development of affordable air travel to the masses. Tenerife's gain was Butlin's loss, as British seaside resorts found themselves in terminal decline.
Imagine back to the early 70's. In Tenerife, with Franco's blessing (and the expected influx of tax revenues), hotels across the Canaries were being built faster than construction companies could recruit. Prime land was acquired, often overlooking the sea, and often overlooking pesky detail such as planning permission or building regulations, and within months, hotels like the Neptuno were up and running. And the new generation of tourists couldn't get enough of these glamourous sun blessed places, with their all-inclusive meals, drinks, entertainment and open air swimming pools. The tourists came in their millions. Butlins in the sun, was born. The idea was that holidays were sold for £99 including flights; and the experience, in addition to the flight and the sunshine, would broadly echo that of the Butlin's approach - mass catering, pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap. And it was a very popular format throughout the 60's and 70's. The bucket and spade brigade had arrived as resorts like this sprang up all over Spain and its islands.
The final nail in the coffin for Hotel Neptuno was..
..not what you'd think and certainly not one single thing. To understand what went wrong for the Neptuno, we need to look back at how Tenerife's tourism industry evolved.
Sadly, hotels like the Neptuno faced fierce headwinds in the late 70's. It was a mix of rotten luck and honestly, natural evolution.
Whilst the Neptuno was financially successful for many years and was rated highly by guests, two things started to happen in the late 70's and early 80's.
Firstly, following the death of Franco in November 1975, Spain moved to become a democracy with a democratically elected leader. This lead to, amongst other things, more freedom for hotels to develop better facilities - old decaying hotels were often propped up with state support under Franco, but this support was now gone, which meant newer resorts became more attractive in order to compete for business (the Neptuno was never what you would call, attractive).
Secondly, the nature of people's expectations changed. Butlin's in the UK was dying on its feet as a result of being a tired and outdated holiday experience. Northern European's, and not just the Brit's, didn't want holiday camps anymore. They wanted a la carte meals, they wanted air conditioned rooms, they wanted better.
Then came the new airport in the south of Tenerife. Up until this point, all flights landed at the much older Tenerife North (TFN) airport - often shrouded in mist and with limited radar technology in that era, it was the scene of one of the world's deadliest aviation disasters in March 1977. I talk more about that on my YouTube video testing out Tenerife North airport. The new Tenerife South (TFS) airport was already well underway when that accident happened, but it only lead to a new found impetus to get the new airport opened as quickly as possible. So, in November 1978, just 20 months after the TFN disaster, TFS opened its doors.
With the new airport, came a whole host of new resorts in the south of the island. With its better weather, fast access between airport and hotel and some expensive, plusher, new resorts like Costa Adeje (then in its infancy), resorts like the Neptuno saw a slow but nevertheless constant downwards trajectory in patronage.
All things taken into consideration, the Neptuno managed to limp along to the mid-2000's until it closed in 2007 following the bankruptcy of its parent company, and it closed its doors later that year, having seen just 45% occupancy in the critical tourist months of July and August.
The town of Bajamar itself has also suffered with the gradual decline in tourism. Nowadays the town attracts a fair surfing community at certain times of the year, as the waters around it provide some of the best surfing conditions on the island. But the surfers don't stay in town given the lack of hotels.
Access to the grounds are now sealed off..but you can still see what remains
Today, like so many abandoned buildings in the Canary Islands (and there are many of them), the Neptuno stands as a reminder of how tourism began for places like Tenerife. Having been vandalised and pretty much stripped back to a skeleton structure, she stands icon-like, baking in the Canarian sun. Like so many similar buildings condemned to an uncertain future, she may be redeveloped or simply razed to the ground. But in typically Canarian style, none of this will happen quickly, if ever.
Conclusion
The Neptuno is well worth seeing, if you can, frankly, be bothered to take what is a fairly long drive to get there. Today, the site is fairly well sealed off to the public and I couldn't see any obvious access to points to take anything other than photo's from the roadside. It used to be that you could wander around yourself and occasionally the Urbex'ers do manage to find new ways into the Neptuno. However, with a near permanent security presence on site now, these are quickly covered over again. You'll also have to be wary of the security guards on site if you do decide to scale a wall or two to gain access.
If you wanted to justify the trip up here, you might also want to check out the La Quinta Bunker, in Santa Ursula. It's not far away and could make your trip even more worthwhile.
In Bajamar itself there's not much that you can't do wherever you find yourself staying whilst on the island.
That said, it still draws the crowds and the day I was there on a late afternoon in January, there were probably ten or so other people taking photographs of it.
Do let me know if you visit and what you thought in the comments below.
Directions:
The Neptuno is very easy to find in the small town of Bajamar, on the TF-13 road.
I drove there but you can also get there using Tenerife's excellent bus system, Titsa
Bajamar offers facilities such as cafes, toilets and whilst there are car parks, if your main purpose of the trip is to see the Neptuno, drive past the Neptuno on your left and further up the road there is plenty of roadside parking. Do be careful though, it's a busy and winding road.
Recommended visit time: 30 minutes
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Comments
I stayed in Bajamar in 1977 at the Hotel Tinguaro, which I think ( though not 100% sure) is now the Altavista. Such a shame the 4 main hotels in the area at that time have all gone . ( Tinguaro, Neptuno, Nautilus and Delfin Laguna). Would love to know more about what happened to them , especially Tinguaro.
My parents stayed at the Neptuno for their 25th wedding anniversary in 1968. My wife and I took the Titsa buses around the island about 7 years ago and walked down from Punta Hidalgo to find the Neptuno. At the time we didn't know it was derelict but we took photos to show Mum & Dad.