Day 8 – Spain: Cala Llonga, Monkey & Es Paradis
Rise and shine! Time to fly to Ibiza! Stelios and I took a 15 minute power nap, woke up at 3:10am to get the car, and we all groggily hopped in and drove 15 minutes to the airport. I was absolutely exhausted and felt like a zombie. I couldn’t wait to pass out on the plane. Stelios somehow was awake enough for a full on breakfast. It was a quick 1 hour 20 minute flight and we landed by 8am.
It was a grey morning here in Ibiza and our rooms wouldn’t be ready until after 2pm. We were staying at the Mondrian in Cala Llonga, it’s a 5 star hotel but had no spa or hot tub which would have been perfect for today. I used ChatGPT to call 3 different spas nearby and finally one had availability for massages at 1pm and 2 hour access to the pools and saunas beforehand – PERFECT! We booked it.
We called a taxi & got dropped off at Aguas de Ibiza, only 10 minutes from our hotel. The spa was very zen and had 3 different pools, a sauna, steam room, and showers. After experiencing all of the pools and rooms, Stelios and I took a nap on one of the daybeds and I passed out for an hour until it was time for our couples massage. My mesus’s name was Sonia she was amazing, using different techniques to get rid of all the tension in my necks and shoulders. It may have been the best massage I’ve ever experienced. Stelios also really enjoyed his massage.
By the time our massages were over our rooms were ready so we went back to the Mondrian to check in. To our delight they upgraded us to a better room and apologized for the long wait to check in. Stelios and I had a master balcony overlooking the pool and beach and they gave us a free tote bag (I was planning on buying a tote bag today since I didn’t pack one to bring on the boat so this really worked out!)
After checking in we all made our way downstairs to have lunch at Sonrojo, the hotel’s chiringuito. It was still a cloudy day but an oceanside meal never disappoints. We ordered the ensaladilla rusa and seafood paella to share. The paella was very good but did not compare to the one we had at Plage Casanis. I gave it a 7/10.
After lunch we took a quick siesta and I manifested that the sun would come out once I woke up — and it did! We got ready for our first night out in Ibiza which would be on the other side of the island to catch the sunset at dinner. We took a 30 minute taxi to Monkey in San Antoni. Monkey was an absolute vibe with a golden hour setlist playing in the background and a gorgeous sunset skyline in front of us. For dinner we shared a bottle of white wine, the pita and mezze spread, octopus, Caesar salad, and steak with chimichurri. The steak was cooked perfectly and the other dishes were just ok but the sunset was spectacular. We all ordered another round of drinks and a woman approached us offering a shiatsu massage. She said you pay as much as you like and that this was a promotion the restaurant was running. Jen immediately said yes because she was not happy with her massage from earlier and raved about how amazing this massage was so we each ended up getting a massage at the table. It was definitely a deeper tissue massage than I was used to but it felt incredible. Can’t go wrong with 2 massages in one day! We tipped the woman for her services, ordered a round of shots and then hit the streets – time for the club!
It was Puro Reggaeton night at Es Paradis in Sant Antoni which I figured would be perfect for mom, since they would be playing Latin and reggaeton music all night long. On my last trip to Ibiza I avoided Sant Antoni because it tends to attract a younger, wilder crowd and now I know why. There were herds of drunk people in the street barhopping. It reminded me of a cross between NOLA and 6th street in Austin. The crowd was kind of ratchet but we made our way through it to the entrance of the club which was on a less crowded side street.
The club was fairly empty since it was early for Ibiza (only 12:30am) but the music was great. We stayed for about an hour and danced to Bad Bunny and other Latin tunes. Mom kept saying “we have to be responsible, we have the boat tomorrow” and she wasn’t wrong. We definitely didn’t want to be tired and hungover for the boat the next day so we left at around 1:30am. Overall a great start to Ibiza and our final leg of the Spain trip!