Iberostar Selection Anthelia
Iberostar Selection Anthelia is a five-star all-inclusive resort on Playa de Fañabé in Costa Adeje, on the sunny south-west coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. It sits in gardens right on the beach between Fañabé and Playa del Duque, with 367 rooms, five restaurants, six pools and a Star Camp kids’ club that runs by age from babies up to teenagers. Families come for the near-direct beach access, the age-banded club and staff that reviews single out by name.
On this page
Is it worth it?
Who it suits, who it doesn’t and the facts to skim before the detail.
Anthelia is a grand, traditional five-star on one of Costa Adeje’s best beaches, and its strengths are the ones that hold up on a family holiday: you’re about 20 m from the sand through a garden gate, the Star Camp club bands children by age, and the thing guests praise most, over and over and by name, is the staff. Reviews across several platforms and two newspaper travel desks land in the same place, a warm, well-run family hotel.
The honest weak spots are worth knowing up front. The building opened in 1999 and, while the rooms have been refreshed since, reviewers and press both note that some of the public areas, the corridors, carpets and fittings, show their age against a five-star price. Star Camp welcomes babies but a parent stays with them until they turn four, so there’s no drop-off childcare for an under-four, and the spa is adults only from 16. If you want the newest fabric or a crèche for a toddler, this isn’t the one; if you want a proven beachfront resort with strong service and a real kids’ club, it is.
Best for
You want near-direct beach access, an age-banded kids’ club from babies up, and service that guests rate highly.
Maybe not for
You need drop-off childcare for a baby or toddler, or you want the newest, most contemporary rooms and public areas.
Best ages
Babies upwards, though a parent stays with the under-fours; free drop-off and more independent clubs start at four.
What stands out
The staff, whom reviews thank by name, the beachfront gardens and a Star Camp that bands children by age.
What to check
Which pool is heated for a cooler-month trip, and that your chosen room accepts children.
Where is it?
On Playa de Fañabé in Costa Adeje, on the south-west coast of Tenerife, about 11 miles (17 km) from Tenerife South airport.
Quick facts for families
What the resort is like
The setting on Fañabé beach, the five blocks and gardens, and what its size means when you’re walking it with children.
The resort sits in gardens directly on Playa de Fañabé, on the Costa Adeje seafront on Tenerife’s south-west coast, between Fañabé and the more upmarket Playa del Duque. It opened in 1999 and is a large, garden-set hotel rather than a boutique one. The style in the public areas is traditional grand-hotel, marble floors, chandeliers, Romanesque columns and a warehouse-sized lobby. The rooms themselves are lighter and more contemporary, and have been refreshed since the opening, though guests and press both note that some public areas, the corridors, carpets and fittings, now show their age.
The 367 rooms sit across five named blocks, Aida, Butterfly, Carmen, Daphne and Electra, which share an operatic theme and are reached by lift. It reads as a big resort, and reviewers describe it as feeling large without being overwhelming, with plenty of seating, several pools and enough sunbeds that, outside the early-morning towel rush, a spot isn’t usually hard to find. The trade-off is distance: depending on your block, the walk from your room to breakfast or a particular pool can be a fair one, which is worth weighing if you’ll be doing it with a pram and a tired toddler.
Sustainability is taken seriously and reviewers praise it by name: the rooms are single-use-plastic-free, there are water-refill stations along every corridor, the electricity is fully renewable, the key cards are recycled paper, and there are plant-based menu options and a food-waste system, all under an EarthCheck certification. Six rooms are fully adapted for accessibility and the hotel is wheelchair-accessible throughout. It runs year-round, with no closed season to plan around, and holds an unbroken run of guest-review and family awards stretching back over a decade: a TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice or equivalent award in almost every year from 2014 to 2025, a HolidayCheck award every year from 2014 to 2026 and Booking.com’s Traveller Review Award from 2021 to 2025, alongside the EarthCheck sustainability certification above, the ISO 9001 international quality-management standard and a family-specific award from the Spanish family-holiday site IRCONNIÑOS.COM. It’s part of Iberostar Hotels and Resorts, an IHG One Rewards partner since 2022, which matters if you collect or spend IHG points. The eight event rooms and 44,000 m² of wedding gardens mean the resort does host larger functions, which can affect how busy the communal areas feel during a stay. For the wider island, its beaches and when to go, see our Tenerife guide.
Every restaurant and bar
The buffet, the four à la carte restaurants, the three bars, what all inclusive covers and how the free à la carte meals work.
All inclusive here covers three buffet meals a day with drinks, snacks at the pool bars, ice cream and a wide range of local drinks, at no extra cost. Premium and branded spirits and most à la carte dining sit outside the standard package, with one exception: a length-of-stay allowance of free à la carte meals, set out below. Food quality is one of the resort’s consistent strengths in reviews, and the breakfast in particular is singled out. There are five restaurants and three bars.
Zeus is the buffet and needs no reservation, so it’s the fallback whenever a child gets hungry at an odd hour. It’s an international buffet with show-cooking at dinner, six themed stations covering the likes of smoked dishes, cold meats, seafood, cheeses and roast meats, plus a chocolate fountain. It’s included on every board. Dinner has a dress code, long trousers and closed shoes for men. High chairs are on hand, and there’s a dedicated children’s buffet section: porridge, pancakes, yoghurt, muesli and pastries at breakfast, and vegetable sides, spaghetti and baked or fried meat and fish at lunch and dinner.
Poseidón is the à la carte gourmet restaurant, with locally sourced ingredients from chef José Miguel Barrera. Sea Soul is the sea-view à la carte restaurant, with fish and seafood, cocktails and sunset views. Portofino is the Italian, with fresh pasta, wood-fired pizza and live cooking, and it’s the easiest à la carte room for a young child: alongside the main menu it has a separate children’s à la carte menu and the option of a simple pizza or pasta. All three need a booking made at the hotel and have a dress code for dinner, and all three are the choices for the free à la carte meal allowance.
Portofino Lunch, which operators also call the Barbacoa, is a poolside lunch restaurant serving market cuisine, including Canarian black potatoes with mojo, the island’s garlicky red and green sauce. It isn’t part of the core board inclusions, and swimwear and sleeveless tops aren’t allowed at its dinner service.
The three bars are the Barito Pool Bar for poolside snacks by the heated pools, the Zumería pool snack bar at the saltwater pool for drinks, snacks and ice cream, and the Hall Bar, the lobby bar with live music and cocktails in the evening. One recurring minor gripe is that a poolside mocktail can cost the same as its alcoholic version.
How the free à la carte meals work
The buffet and the poolside lunch restaurant aside, the à la carte restaurants aren’t included by default. On all inclusive, the hotel’s own terms give one complimentary à la carte meal for a stay of four to six nights and two for seven nights or more, chosen from Poseidón, Portofino or Sea Soul and booked at the hotel. Tour operators sometimes describe this allowance differently in their own packages, so it’s worth confirming the exact terms that apply to the holiday you book. Hours are useful for planning around naps and early dinners: as a rough guide the Zeus buffet serves breakfast around 7.30 to 10.30am and dinner around 7 to 10pm; Poseidón and Portofino run dinner from around 7 to 11pm; Sea Soul opens from around 10am to 11pm, with its kitchen taking a break between 12.30 and 4pm before reopening from 6 to 11pm; the Barito and Zumería pool bars run from around 10am to 6pm; and the Hall Bar runs from around 10am to 1am. The hotel points guests to its app for the current times, which also shows a running total of your room bill.
Rooms and suites
Every category with its official size, then the six pools and the beach below.
There are thirteen room and suite categories, from a compact 28 m² sea-view double up to a 151 or 216 m² Presidential Suite. The sizes below are Iberostar’s own. A cot or cradle is free of charge on every room type, on request, so add it to the booking rather than assuming it’s there.
| Room | Size | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Garden View Double | ~30 m² | A balcony and a garden view. The official copy invites you to ask for an extra bed or a cot. |
| Sea-View Double | ~28 m² | A balcony or terrace and a full sea view. The most compact room here. |
| Side Sea-View Double | ~30 m² | A balcony or terrace, a side sea view and an in-room Bluetooth speaker. |
| Side or Double Sea-View Priority Location | ~30 m² | Upper floors, with a panoramic or side sea view. |
| Garden-View Interconnecting Double | ~60 m² | Two linked rooms, a terrace, two bathrooms and a garden view. |
| Sea-View Interconnecting Double | ~60 m² | Two linked rooms, a terrace, two bathrooms and a sea view. |
| Side Sea-View Interconnecting Double | ~60 m² | Two linked rooms, a terrace, two bathrooms and a side sea view. |
| Interconnecting Double with shared terrace | ~60 m² | Ground floor, with a semi-private terrace and Balinese day beds, close to Star Camp. |
| Shared double terrace | ~30 m² | Ground floor, with a semi-private terrace and Balinese day beds, close to Star Camp. |
| Suite Sea View | ~70 m² | Two floors, a separate living room with a sofa bed, a whirlpool bath for two and two bathrooms. |
| Senior Suite Sea View | ~67 m² | An outdoor whirlpool, sun loungers and a separate living room with a sofa bed. |
| Side Sea-View Duplex Suite | ~74 m² | Two floors, a living room, a sofa bed and a balcony, on the top floor. |
| Sea-View Presidential Suite | 151 or 216 m² | Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchenette, an outdoor whirlpool and one terrace dinner per stay. |
With a baby or toddler, the question is whether you want a door to close on a sleeping child, and there are a few good answers. The two ground-floor shared-terrace rooms sit closest to Star Camp and need no lift with a pram and a sleeping baby, which makes them the standout pick for a young family using the club daily. The interconnecting rooms, at about 60 m² across two linked rooms, turn one room into a dedicated sleep space and give you two bathrooms, so a bath-time routine and an adult getting ready for dinner don’t clash; one 2023 guest noted the connecting door wouldn’t lock from the inside, so it’s worth checking on arrival if you want that door secured at night. The duplex and the Suite Sea View put the bedroom on a separate floor from the living area, which suits a baby going down early while adults stay up. The standard doubles at 28 to 30 m² are compact for a family of three or four with a travel cot, though functional, and a Times reviewer confirmed they’re big enough for cots and extra beds.
Two things are worth knowing before you book. A room booked as a double may turn out to be two single mattresses pushed together, a common Spanish convention, though the official room options list a king or twins as an either-or, so you can usually request a true king if it matters. Iberostar doesn’t publish a firm occupancy per room, so treat operator figures as a guide rather than a guarantee: two operators put standard doubles at around two adults and one child and interconnecting rooms at up to four adults and two children, with the suites at three to four adults and children not counted towards that limit. Confirm the occupancy for your exact party when you book. Room policies can vary too: one operator states a minimum age of 17 for the Priority Location Superior Double, a second operator’s occupancy chart shows the equivalent room accepting children, while the official Iberostar site states no age restriction on any room category. With sources disagreeing, don’t take a firm age limit on any specific room type as settled; check with your booking channel that children are accepted before you pay, particularly if a Priority Location room comes up at a lower rate than the family-oriented interconnecting ones. A couple of specific room configurations come and go from operators’ listings, so it’s worth confirming your exact room is available for your dates.
Every room includes air conditioning, a minibar (chargeable), free Wi-Fi, a coffee maker, Chromecast, a hairdryer, an iron and board, a safe and a phone.
Pools and water features
There are six outdoor pools. The official breakdown is one saltwater pool, two freshwater pools and three children’s pools, one of which has a pirate ship and water slides and sits inside Star Camp’s gated area. The heated pool is a distinct, popular one that families tend to favour for little ones, while the saltwater pool is generally quieter and used more by adults; operators sometimes call one pool an adults’ pool, though the hotel states no access restriction, so read that as how a pool is used rather than a rule.
Not all the pools are heated all year, and which one is heated isn’t a stated policy, so for a cooler-month trip with a baby it’s worth asking reception which pool is actively heated before you rely on it.
The beach
Playa de Fañabé runs for 600 m of pale sand and holds a Blue Flag, and the island’s tourist board lists it among southern Tenerife’s liveliest beaches. The hotel sits about 20 m from it: you walk through the gardens to a gate that opens onto the beach promenade, with no steps, only ramps, which is about as direct as a beachfront hotel in Costa Adeje gets. The sea entry is calm and sheltered, and it’s consistently described as gentle enough for toddlers and non-swimmers. The beach has showers, sun loungers (chargeable), toilets and water sports concessions, and lifeguards operate year-round; Fañabé is one of only two Adeje beaches with a staffed municipal watch post that runs without a seasonal gap.
Two more beaches sit within a walk if you want a change of character: Playa del Duque, about 500 m away, is more upmarket and also Blue Flag, and Torviscas is about a mile (1.5 km). Playa la Pinta, also nearby, is noticeably more run-down, so not every beach a short walk away is the same. PADI diving schools operate about half a mile (1 km) from the hotel, run by third parties rather than the resort.
Babies and toddlers
How Star Camp bands by age, where the childcare stops, the baby kit and feeding.
Start with the line that shapes the week: there’s no crèche or drop-off childcare for under-fours. Star Camp bands children by age. Kangaroo takes 0 to 3 year olds, but it isn’t drop-off, a parent or guardian has to be present throughout. Monkey (4 to 7) and Dolphin (8 to 12) are free drop-off, with Dolphin adding an indoor play area of ball pit, films and slides for ages 4 to 12, and Eagle is the 13 to 17 teen space. This parent-present model for the youngest is typical of the Iberostar Selection tier rather than a shortfall unique to this hotel, but it’s a genuine limitation to know: a baby or toddler is with you all week unless you arrange babysitting. Paid babysitting can be arranged, so email the hotel before you travel to confirm the cost, hours and notice, especially for a child under four.
Star Camp itself is well regarded. It’s a recurring high point in reviews, and two newspaper reviewers praised it independently for genuine age-banding and trained staff in a gated, secure space, the one that holds the pirate-ship pool. There’s also a staffed indoor play area for 4 to 12 year olds and a playground with swings and shaded areas.
The baby kit is decent for this age. Cots and cradles are free on every room type, on request. High chairs are in the restaurants, and the children’s buffet section at Zeus is set up for young eaters, with Portofino adding a children’s à la carte menu. The minibar is restocked with yoghurts, juices and biscuits for children on arrival, a courtesy stock rather than a free-to-refill one, so the usual minibar charges still apply to anything you replace. Bring your own steriliser and baby-food jars, or ask reception, rather than counting on them being provided. Some guests describe enclosed glass balconies with no gap at the bottom, a reassuring detail for parents of a mobile toddler, though it isn’t confirmed across every room type.
The spa is adults only from 16, so it isn’t a baby or toddler facility. One guest has reported a periodic children’s session, but the hotel doesn’t confirm a day or time, so treat 16 as the policy and ask the hotel if a family spa hour matters to you.
Things to do
The included sport and entertainment, what costs extra, and the adults-only spa.
Plenty is included at no extra cost. Tennis and paddle tennis are free, and a Fit and Fun programme covers football, aqua spinning, table tennis, aerobics, aquagym and pool games. There are two fitness rooms, one open around the clock, plus an outdoor gym. The daily entertainment runs shows, live music, a mini-disco and professional animation, all listed on the Iberostar app. Seasonal theming is taken seriously: December visitors describe a full Christmas programme with a children’s festive ice rink, a countdown train and Santa visiting each child, which won’t recur identically each year but shows the resort invests in family seasonal entertainment.
A few things cost extra or run off-site. The beach has water sports concessions, and PADI diving schools about half a mile (1 km) away offer refresher courses up to Advanced and Rescue, run by third parties. Five golf courses are within reach, the nearest, Golf Costa Adeje, about 3 miles (5 km) away and designed by José Gancedo.
SPA Sensations is the spa, and it’s adults only from 16, stated plainly on the hotel’s site. It’s a thermal circuit: an active pool, a jets-and-waterfalls circuit, a 40°C pool, a cold pool, a Finnish sauna, a hammam and sensation showers. The treatment menu runs to massages, body wraps and facials, there’s a Mayr Kur detox programme with an external doctor, and an on-site Pilates studio gives Anthelia guests a discount on private classes. All-inclusive guests get one free spa entry per stay, still subject to the 16-plus rule.
The area and days out
The Costa Adeje strip on the doorstep, getting around without a car and the family days out with their drives.
Anthelia isn’t a sealed bubble. It sits directly on the Costa Adeje seafront strip, and a back gate leads out to independent restaurants and shops walkable in either direction, with El Duque Castle about five minutes away on foot. TripAdvisor scores the location 96 out of 100 for walkers, with more than 100 restaurants and over 20 attractions listed within 0.3 miles, and the flat coastal promenade is pushchair-friendly, so a car or taxi is only needed for the far side of the island. On foot or by promenade you can reach the shops, bars and restaurants of the strip and the neighbouring beaches without transport.
For days out, two big water parks are within easy reach: Aqualand Costa Adeje is the closer, about 1.2 miles (2 km), and Siam Park, the island’s largest, is about a ten-minute drive, where under-threes go free and the flagship Lost City ride has no height limit. Further afield you’ll want a car or an organised trip: Teide National Park and the Barranco del Infierno gorge both sit inland. Whale- and dolphin-watching and snorkelling boat trips are booked locally, off a coast whose marine populations are protected. If a child falls ill, Hospiten Sur, a private hospital, is in the same postal district close by, and you’ll need travel insurance to use it. For more on the island, see our Tenerife guide.
Loves and gripes
What families rate and what frustrates them, and how it sits against the newer resorts nearby.
What families love
- The staff and service, the single most consistent theme, with individuals thanked by name.
- The beachfront location and how walkable the strip is.
- The food, and the breakfast in particular.
- Star Camp, for its genuine age-banding and trained staff.
- The cleanliness of the rooms, pools and beach.
- The named sustainability efforts, praised specifically rather than in passing.
Common gripes
- Dated, tired common areas, the corridors, carpets and fittings, against the five-star price.
- The sun-lounger reservation culture, with towels down at dawn.
- Poor restaurant coffee, a note that recurs across years.
- Sound carrying between interconnecting rooms.
- Uncertainty over what’s charged to the room.
- Value at peak season against newer competitors.
On the numbers, the picture is strongly positive and stable. It scores 4.7 out of 5 on TripAdvisor across 5,728 reviews, ranked fifth of 78 hotels in Costa Adeje and carrying a 2026 Travellers’ Choice award, with Location, Cleanliness and Service all at 4.8 and Rooms and Value the joint-lowest at 4.4; 8.7 out of 10 on Booking.com, where Location and Staff both score 9.5 and Cleanliness 9.3, while Value is the lowest at 8.1; and 5.7 out of 6 on HolidayCheck with 98% recommending it across 948 reviews and Dining and Service its standout categories. A smaller Trip.com sample sits at 9.3 out of 10, and the hotel’s own site cites around 4.8 out of 5 on Google. Two newspaper travel desks reviewed it on hosted stays and landed in the same place: the Telegraph scored it 8 out of 10 and called it a near-perfect family resort, the Times 7 out of 10, both rating family-friendliness at 9 out of 10. Value for money is the lowest sub-score across the platforms, and some full-rate summer guests felt it didn’t fully justify the price against newer competitors, while praising the same staff and location.
Against the newer resorts nearbyHow it compares
Within Costa Adeje, Anthelia’s fifth-of-78 ranking puts it ahead of several newer, more design-led hotels on guest sentiment, even where those competitors have fresher common areas. The trade to weigh is real: on one side the near-direct beach access and the unusually strong staff reputation, on the other the building’s age showing in the shared spaces and the firm 16-plus spa, where some competitor resorts run family spa sessions more routinely. Against the newer purpose-built family megaresorts elsewhere in the Canaries, its Star Camp format, age-banded but without a 0 to 3 drop-off crèche, is typical of the Iberostar Selection tier rather than a step above it, so a family that specifically needs drop-off care for a baby or toddler won’t find it here.
Getting there and when to go
The journey in, the fact that it’s open all year, and the months that suit young children.
Tenerife South (TFS) is the airport to fly into, about 11 miles (17 km) away and roughly 13 minutes by taxi. Shared coach transfers with several hotel stops run to around 30 minutes. Tenerife North is 52 miles (83 km) away, which isn’t practical by taxi, so if you land there use a private transfer or a hire car. With a pushchair, luggage and car seats a private transfer is the easier arrival, and it needs arranging ahead rather than being laid on automatically.
The resort runs year-round, so there’s no closed season to plan around. The gentlest months with young children are October to May, when the warmth is manageable rather than intense. In the cooler months, roughly November to March, the sea is on the cool side and confirming which pool is heated matters most, so it’s worth asking reception on arrival.
Weather
Costa Adeje sits on Tenerife’s south coast, in the rain shadow of Mount Teide, so it’s reliably drier and sunnier than the island’s north. The table below covers the whole year, since the resort never closes. Summers are hot and dry, with the sea warmest from August into September; winters are mild rather than hot, with a little more rain in December. The UV index climbs from around 4 in midwinter to 11, the top of the scale, from June to August, so high-factor sun cream and shade are a year-round habit here and matter most from May to September.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 22° | 15° | 18 mm | 2 | 20° |
| February | 22.5° | 15° | 19 mm | 2 | 20° |
| March | 23° | 15.5° | 8 mm | 1 | 20° |
| April | 23.5° | 16° | 9 mm | 1 | 20° |
| May | 24.5° | 17.5° | 1 mm | 0 | 21° |
| June | 26° | 19° | 0 mm | 0 | 22° |
| July | 28° | 20.5° | 0 mm | 0 | 22° |
| August | 29° | 21.5° | 2 mm | 0 | 23° |
| September | 28° | 21° | 7 mm | 1 | 24° |
| October | 27.5° | 20° | 12 mm | 2 | 24° |
| November | 25° | 18.5° | 14 mm | 2 | 23° |
| December | 23.5° | 16.5° | 29 mm | 3 | 22° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer. The resort is open all year.
Questions
The things families ask before booking, the official pages worth a bookmark and when this guide was last refreshed.
Which room suits us with a baby or toddler?
For families using Star Camp daily, the ground-floor shared-terrace rooms are the easy pick: no lift with a pram, and they sit nearest the club. Prefer a door to close on a sleeping baby? An interconnecting room or a split-level suite gives you that separate space. Book a cot with the room, and have your booking channel confirm it takes children before you pay, especially if a Priority Location room comes up at a lower rate.
Can we leave a baby or toddler at the kids’ club?
Not for a child under four. The 0-to-3 Kangaroo group runs only with a parent alongside, and hands-off care starts at four with the Monkey group. For an evening to yourselves before then, your one route is the hotel’s paid babysitting, so message them ahead to sort the cost, the notice they need and whether they will take a child under four.
Is the spa open to children?
As a rule, no. SPA Sensations sets a minimum age of 16, so the thermal circuit is for adults. Families have mentioned an occasional children’s session, but with no fixed day or time you would need to ask the hotel to pin it down rather than plan a trip around it.
How many free à la carte meals do we get on all inclusive?
On the hotel’s own terms, a four-to-six-night all-inclusive stay includes one free à la carte meal and a stay of seven nights or more includes two, taken at Poseidón, Portofino or Sea Soul and booked once you are there. Package operators word the allowance differently, so read the terms of your specific booking rather than assuming.
How many can sleep in one room?
There is no official per-room figure, so operators fill the gap: standard doubles are generally sold for two adults and one child, interconnecting rooms for up to four adults and two children. Take those as indicative, and get your exact party size confirmed for the specific room when you book.
Is there anything nearby if a child is ill?
Hospiten Sur, a private hospital, sits in the same postal district, so serious care is close at hand. Being private, it runs on your travel insurance, which is the reason to have the policy in place before you fly. Tenerife is otherwise a well-trodden, low-risk trip for UK families.
Do we need to sort passports and health cover?
It’s the standard position for Spain: a valid passport and a GHIC or EHIC for state healthcare, backed by travel insurance. Check gov.uk for the current entry rules before you travel, since the detail changes from time to time.
See more Iberostar Selection Anthelia photos
Open the Iberostar Selection Anthelia photo gallery →Useful links
- Iberostar Selection Anthelia: the resort’s own site for rooms, what’s included, Star Camp and the current offer terms.
- GOV.UK Spain travel advice: entry rules and safety updates before you travel.
- Tenerife with little ones: our guide to the wider island, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 16 July 2026.
