I found The Balcon perfect for my holiday. Central, spotlessly clean, quiet and friendly. The view from my balcony was beautiful, better than we expected. We stayed on 'bed and breakfast' basis and were highly satisfied with the selection on offer from the buffet.

The staff were friendly, very helpful, all you would expect. We stayed for 7 nights in March and, on return home, we have booked again for 14 nights in June. We fell in love with Nerja, and the 'Balcon' played a big part in giving us our perfect holiday.

We stayed at the Balcon in February 2007 and liked it sufficiently to go there again.
As with last year, although we had asked for a room with a balcony and sea view, we were not allocated one. However, this time I had retained the evidence that this was what we had booked and paid for. Presented with this, the receptionist spoke to her boss who said we could be moved but not until next day. It was late in the evening anyway, so we accepted this and moved to a very nice room the following morning. No further problems.
We stayed on a bed & breakfast basis, as there are so many nice restaurants within a short distance, it seemed a pity to restrict ourselves to eating in the hotel only. Plenty of choice at breakfast.
On the down side, once again we observed the traditional placing of blankets on sun beds early in the morning to reserve them for later in the day. Ashamed to say it was always British senior citizens who thought they had a right to do this. About time the hotel management sorted it out. We tended to sit upstairs by the pool where there was no such competition. We'll still be back next year though.

Not only was the hotel a huge disappointment but they had double booked our room on arrival. We had paid for a room with a sea view, through the booking agents “World on a Plate”.
On arrival however, we were told that all the rooms with sea views were taken and had to spend our first night in what can only be described as ‘Servant’s Quarters’, directly opposite a very noisy Irish Pub.

The following day we were finally given the room we should have had but we had to wait hours for it to be prepared and that day was practically wasted.
They told us our room would be ready by 12 noon but had to wait until about 2pm.

On departure they tried to charge us for 7 nights of parking, despite removing the car from the hotel car park after two or three nights and parking it in an open area of land reserved for free parking.
Recent tricks to extort money out of me come as no surprise - the hotel is still trying to charge 100 Euros to my VISA Card despite being back home for four months.
The Balcon de Europa staff are either totally incompetent or perhaps they are operating a dishonest policy?

As for the hotel - might have been nice thirty years ago?

The hotel, location, service and food were good.

We were quite disturbed that the hotel charged 9 euros a night for parking our hire car but didn't inform us of the charge when we arrived. When we discovered it and questioned management, we were told that to park anywhere else in Nerja would cost 26 euros a night. That information was wrong. Within 3 minutes walk of the hotel there is a huge FREE public car park. Hotel reception did not tell us that.

Every where else we went IVA (VAT) was included in prices for meals and drinks. This hotel adds IVA to all bills for goods and services. So that 10 euro bottle of wine on the menu is actually charged 10.70. They even charged 7% IVA on the car parking.
Over time the IVA can add to a considerable extra charge to your final bill.