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Recommendation on Spain itinerary

We are a couple planning to go to Spain for our honeymoon in February next year. Please help with whatever suggestions possible on this itinerary.

Barcelona-3N(museums, partying and shopping). Flight to Tenerife.
Tenerife-3N(water park, whale watching, scuba diving, Teide mountains and national park). Flight to Seville.
Seville-2N(Skydive plus sightseeing)
Train/bus/car(please suggest) to Granada. Off to Sierra Nevada for snow(no skiing).
Off to Madrid for our return flight.
Need suggestions on Tenerife as planning to go there on Valentine's Day. Worth it or should we head to Ibiza? Thanks in advance ☺

Posted by
28085 posts

I think folks are hesitating to say it, but that's an awful lot of packing up and moving around for a short trip. Do you have 10 nights? 11? I'd want a much more relaxed pace for a honeymoon.

Four flights in a week and a half is at least two flights too many for me. Dealing with airports is a real pain, and the time you have to allow for security really cuts into your day.

All those relocations chew up a lot of time. Your actual sightseeing time will be approximately:

Barcelona--2 days
Tenerife--2 days and a few hours
Seville--1 day and a few hours
Sierra Nevada--unclear
Madrid--a few hours

Posted by
6790 posts

I'm not sure if this is actually a serious plan, or perhaps just trolling, but I'll assume it's a sincere proposal since attempting this might get you killed.

I'll be direct: your proposed itinerary is unrealistic, ill-advised, and (believe it or not) could result in serious injury, even death. At best, it seems like a waste of time and money that will leave you exhausted rather than blissed-out.

acraven has correctly pointed out that with all your coming and going, you would have very, very little time anywhere. But even that understates the problem: some of your proposed activities require time to get set up, and others require time afterwards before traveling, for safety.

Are you a certified scuba diver? If you are, you should know about the very real danger of getting DCS (decompression sickness, aka "the bends") by flying too soon after diving. If you don't know about this yet, here's the short version: you need to wait a while after diving before you get on any airplane. You also need to wait a while before going up in mountains. Exactly how long you need to wait depends on many variables, but most of us use 24 hours after you exit the water as a rough guideline.

Your trip to Tenerife is too short to accommodate this. Even if you fly to Tenerife and get up the next morning and do your diving right away, you should not drive up into any mountains until you have completed off-gassing (24 hours to be safe). Worse yet, you are talking about first diving, then heading up into the mountains (dangerous), then flying back to Seville (more dangerous), and - wait for it - then going up in a small plane to go skydiving (even more dangerous), all in rapid succession. The risks are cumulative. You are just asking to get "bent" (decompression sickness), a condition that is painful and can even be fatal. You really don't want this on your honeymoon.

Diving in February...Hmmm. Do you do alright in cold water (and cold water dive gear)? You might want to check average water temps for the Canary Islands before you start packing your 9 mm full wetsuit. I'm seeing average February water temps of 17°C / 63°F...that's pretty chilly for my tastes. Maybe the recompression chamber will be nice and warm?

I'm an experienced diver and I did attempt to dive when I was in the Canary Islands years ago, but was never able to. The local dive shops would not accept my basic open water (PADI OW) certification. I had my C-card which I had used to dive in many places, but they told me they required some higher level of certification and an official letter from my doctor certifying my health fitness to dive - that seemed very odd to me (I had never heard of such a requirement). I was told it was a local thing. I gave up and took a windsurfing lesson instead. In fairness, it's been years since I was there and its possible their certification/medical requirements may have changed since then, but you should be ready for surprises like that.

Honestly, I think you plan is seriously misguided. I'd urge you to reconsider. Be careful.

Posted by
38 posts

I agree with Anne and David. Your itinerary is way too much for 10 days. I would strongly consider dropping Tenerife. Or Seville and Granada. Decide what is most important to you and then plan.

Posted by
2 posts

Thanks a lot for your honest opinions. We plan to head to Tenerife/Ibiza first for 3 nights. We are now going to consider not doing so many activities and stick to a few. Planning to just go there and decide on spot. Seville 2 nights with skydiving. We actually wanted to skip Granada and do a road trip to Sierra Navada and stay for 2 nights but read that most hotels at Sierra Nevada are shut during February. Is it true if you guys have any idea? Lastly we'll go to Barcelona for 3 nights and take our return flight. Thanks.

Posted by
28085 posts

I have no personal experience with winter in Europe, but to check on the hotel situation in the Sierra Nevada, you can go to booking.com and look for hotel rooms during February for a few of the towns you might stay in. See what's available. Although not every lodging place is on booking.com, I think this will give you a decent idea of whether the area is going to work during your travel period. If there's skiing (I have no clue), surely places will be open.