Meloneras Car Hire: Hotel Pickups on the Quiet Side of the Dunes

Collect at Gando or later in the resort, keep it in the hotel car park, and drive the whole island.

85 cars on the listing

58 take a debit card

49 accept under-25s

Up to 50% cheaper than portals

Three ways a car reaches a Meloneras hotel

None of the 85 cars on the Gran Canaria listing delivers to an address, so car hire in Meloneras is arranged around a pickup point rather than a hotel door. Which of the three versions suits you depends on how long you stay and how many mornings the car will move.

Best if you expect to drive on most days

The airport is at Gando on the east coast, and the GC-1 runs about 30 km from its car park down to the Maspalomas resorts, with Meloneras at their western edge. Collect on arrival and there is no transfer and no second handover. The cost is paying for the car on the days it stays parked.

Best for a fortnight whose first days belong to the beach

Suppliers who hand over in the resort do it from their own pickup point, not your hotel door; the listing shows that point once your dates are in. Take the transfer down, unpack, and collect on the first morning you want the car. The boulevard, the beach and the lighthouse are all on foot from the Meloneras hotels, so the opening days lose nothing.

Best if the car is for two or three specific days out

A two-week stay here is usually a beach holiday with a mountain day, a Mogan day and a Las Palmas day in the middle. At the median 25 to 39 EUR a day the full fortnight is 350 to 546 EUR; four days in the middle are 100 to 156 EUR. The catch is availability: only 28 of the 85 cars are automatic, and in a school-holiday week the one you wanted has often gone.

Four things a hotel stay changes about the booking

The car park is the reason to keep the car

Meloneras is the side of the dunes with the larger hotels, and the larger hotels have their own parking. That is what makes a two-week hire sensible here and a chore in Playa del Ingles next door, which is older and busier. A car with a guaranteed space every night is one you keep without thinking about it; ask reception whether the space is charged and how the barrier works.

The card in the driver's name

Fifty-eight of the 85 cars take a debit card; the other 27 want a credit card in the driver's name. At a resort handover there is no desk to argue with, only a supplier who will decline the card and leave, so set the filter before you compare prices.

Fuel is cheaper than you are used to

The Canaries sit outside EU VAT and charge their own IGIC, so fuel costs noticeably less than on mainland Spain. Fill the tank before the GC-1 to the airport, because a supplier refuelling it never charges the pump price.

The wristband and the breathalyser

Spain's limit is 0.05 percent, 0.03 on a new licence. An all-inclusive evening and an early start for the mountains do not mix. Limits are 120 on the motorway, 90 on the open road and 50 in town, and the resort streets count as town.

The hotel pickup, from booking to the drive back

Book the days the car will move, not the days you are here

Enter the dates you want the keys and pick the pickup point the listing offers: Gando, or a point in the resort area. Use the debit-card, automatic and under-25 filters before you look at price.

Meet the supplier and walk round the car with your phone out

Photograph every panel, the wheels, the windscreen and the fuel gauge before the keys change hands; at a resort pickup point nobody is queuing behind you.

Park at the hotel and register the plate at reception

Hotel car parks usually work on a barrier and a room number. Give reception the registration on the first evening and the car becomes part of the room.

Drive west one day and up another

West is the GC-500 coast road past Puerto Rico and Amadores to Puerto de Mogan, dropping steeply into each resort. Up is the GC-60 through Fataga to Tejeda and Roque Nublo at 1,813 m, slow and winding: the road sets the pace, not the car.

Fill up, then take the GC-1 back to Gando

Return the car where you collected it. If that is the airport, the 30 km of motorway is the easy part; the fuel-station queue on a changeover morning is not, so fill up the evening before.

What a week and a fortnight cost, by price band

Day rates read from the live Gran Canaria listing a week, a month and two months ahead; the range shown held on all three dates. The week and fortnight columns are plain multiplication, so a stay can be costed before you decide how many days the car needs.

Band	Per day	A week	A fortnight	Share of the 85
Cheapest on the day	4-16 EUR	28-112 EUR	56-224 EUR	A car or two, gone first
Lower quarter	20-30 EUR	140-210 EUR	280-420 EUR	About a quarter of the listing
The middle of the market	25-39 EUR	175-273 EUR	350-546 EUR	The median car of the 85
Upper quarter	45-73 EUR	315-511 EUR	630-1,022 EUR	The top quarter of the listing

By class the listing holds 31 compacts, 29 family cars, 24 SUVs and 14 minivans, plus three cabriolets and one premium car; nothing is electric and nothing has four-wheel drive.

Questions from people staying in Meloneras

Not from this listing: none of the 85 cars offers delivery to an address. Collect at Gando when you land, or at a supplier pickup point in the resort area once you are settled; either way the car is in your hotel car park the same evening.

Only if it will move most days. The hotel car park makes keeping it effortless, but at the median 25 to 39 EUR a day a fortnight is 350 to 546 EUR. Four or five days in the middle cover the west coast, the mountains and Las Palmas for about a third of that.

At Gando on the east coast, about 30 km up the GC-1 from the Maspalomas resorts; Meloneras is their western end, past the lighthouse. Motorway the whole way, and the same road back on the last morning.

Not reliably. Only 28 of the 85 cars are automatic against 57 manuals, and they go first in school holidays. If you cannot drive a manual, book the car with the hotel and set the automatic filter first.

Short, and better done slowly. The GC-500 coast road runs west past Puerto Rico and Amadores to Puerto de Mogan, dropping steeply into each resort. A compact copes without complaint, and fuel is cheaper here than on the mainland.