the melia JARDINES DEL TIEDE tenerife

Some reunions call for a group chat and a takeaway. This one called for Tenerife.

Four of us, uni friends since meeting on our year abroad in America in 2001, scattered across the UK, 25 years in. we didn't want just any old weekend. We wanted somewhere that felt like the reunion deserved it.

So I took on the search and booked Meliá Jardines del Teide. Two level suites with outdoor terrace, four nights, all inclusive. through my agent credentials.

£2,200. for two suites. Four nights. All inclusive.

That's the bit people always ask about first and honestly, fair enough — it's the number that makes people sit up. but the number isn't even the best part.

The welcome

We walked into both rooms to cava on ice and cake waiting. With a handwritten note celebrating 25 years of friendship — not a generic "welcome to your stay," a beautiful acknowledgment of what this trip was.

That's the Level difference. Not the terrace, not the breakfast, but the fact someone read the booking notes and decided a 25th reunion deserved cava and a handwritten line.

The food

A la carte breakfast in the level restaurant, every morning, the good kind of quiet, listening to the waterfall and soaking up the views of Adeje before the day starts.

Lunch was my highlight, endless seafood and rosé. If you know, you know.

There was even a Level pool — private, waiter service, cocktails folded into the all inclusive, which meant zero mental math every time someone wanted another one. Just sun, mojitos, and the four of us picking up exactly where we left off.

The four nights

We barely left the hotel but that was the point.

One walk out to La Caleta, the tourist market, because you can't not when you have teen boys to buy for and a trip to the Marina to go parasailing, which is exactly as good an idea at 47 as it was at 22, possibly better.

Everything else was the resort, the pool, the rosé and each other.

The part that isn't really about tenerife

I didn't book this through a search engine or a comparison site. I booked it through the same system travel agents use — the one that exists behind every hotel, cruise and holiday, whether you can see it or not.

When comparing what I paid to other popular booking sites, we saved about £1300 on this trip.