GlynBenidorm is written about as a place you go to drink cheaply in the sun. What almost nobody writes about is that it is, by some distance, the easiest resort on this coast to get around in a wheelchair or on a mobility scooter.
That is largely an accident. Benidorm was not designed to be kind to anybody’s hips. It was planned in a hurry in the late 1950s by a mayor who wanted height, light and air, and the result was a town built flat, all at once, to a single plan, with wide pavements and long level promenades. Sixty years on, a place laid out for tower blocks and tourists turns out to suit wheels rather well. If you want the story of how that happened, it is Pedro Zaragoza’s doing.
But it is not uniformly good, and the exceptions are the bit worth knowing before you book. So here is the honest version: what works, what does not, what it costs, and the two or three questions you will have to ask on the telephone because nobody publishes the answers.
Getting here is the part to sort out first
Assistance at Alicante-Elche airport is free and it is run by Aena, the airport operator, not the airline. You need to do two things, not one. Tell your airline or travel agent when you book, which is obligatory, and then register the request with Aena as well, at aena.es/pmr, through the Aena app, or by ringing (+34) 91 321 10 00.
Do it at least 48 hours before departure. That is the deadline at which Aena guarantees the service. Turn up two and a half hours before the flight and be at the meeting point two hours before, and somebody comes and finds you and stays with you until you are in your seat. If you are travelling with your own powered chair or scooter, that is a separate conversation with the airline about batteries, and it needs having early.
Then the transfer, which I have written about at length in the airport to Benidorm comparison. Three of the options work.
The ALSA coach from the airport carries wheelchair users, but only with notice. The rule is more than 36 hours in advance, and in some cases 24. Your chair has to fit the platform and be certified for travelling anchored: maximum 120cm long by 70cm wide, and no more than 300kg including you. Book the space when you buy the ticket rather than turning up and hoping.
The tram is the pleasant one. The whole Alicante to Benidorm line is built for it. Every stop is adapted, the trains have automatic ramps on all the double doors so there is no step up from the platform, there are wheelchair spaces on board, and the stops are announced by voice. It does not go to the airport, so it is a Luceros connection rather than a door-to-door answer, but for days out to Villajoyosa or Altea it is the best thing in the province.
Adapted taxis exist. Radio Taxi Benidorm, the main association in the town with over 220 drivers, lists vehicles prepared for carrying passengers in a wheelchair, and the number is (+34) 965 86 26 26. What nobody publishes is how many adapted cars there actually are, and the number is not large anywhere in Spain. Ring ahead rather than expecting one on the rank.
Around the town
The two seafront promenades are the reason people with mobility problems keep coming back here. Levante runs the best part of two kilometres, flat, wide and unbroken. The Poniente promenade, rebuilt in the last decade, is level the whole way, with seats facing the sea at intervals and an adapted toilet on it. Between them that is several miles of genuinely step-free seafront with bars and cafés the whole way along, which is not a thing most Mediterranean resorts can offer.
The town buses are run by Avanza, trading as Llorente Bus, across 31 routes and 214 stops. The fleet is built to universal accessibility standards, most have voice announcements, and each bus carries a minimum of two priority seats plus a reserved space for two wheelchairs.
The beaches, which are the best thing here
Benidorm has run staffed accessible beach points since 2000, and it is the part of the town’s accessibility provision that is genuinely first rate rather than merely adequate.
There are three of them. One on Levante at Calle Murcia, opened in 2000. One on Poniente at Avenida Mont Benidorm, towards the La Cala end, opened 2001. One on Poniente at Parque de Elche, opened 2003, and that is the busiest of the three by a wide margin.
Each point has a ramp down from the promenade, a boardwalk running across the sand to the water, an adapted changing room and toilet, shade and windbreaks, and lifeguards. Each holds three amphibious chairs for adults and, since summer 2025, one for children, plus three sets of amphibious crutches in different sizes. One of the adult chairs is an XXL model rated to 220 kilos. Somebody from the service goes into the water with you when you use a bathing chair.
Staffing runs at three people per point through the summer, two from the middle of February to the end of May, and one over the winter.
The season runs from 1 June to 30 September, opening at half past nine in the morning. Out of season the points still open, 10.30 to 14.30, closed only between 15 January and 14 February.
Two different clocks are at work here and it is worth separating them, because I had them muddled myself until somebody pointed it out.
The first is the beach. Benidorm’s beach ordinance keeps people off the sand overnight, from midnight until seven in the morning, so the cleaning machines can work and because there are no lifeguards at that hour. So the beach is yours until midnight.
The second is the accessible point, which is a staffed service and keeps its own shorter hours. That is where I have a problem: the town hall and the tourist board publish different summer closing times, 19.30 and 18.30, and I have not established which is right. What ends at that hour is the staffed part, the chairs and the assisted bathing. Whether the ramp, the boardwalk and the changing room stay open to use on your own afterwards is a separate question again, and not one I can answer from a published source.
If an evening swim is the reason you are coming, ring and ask about the point specifically rather than about the beach. They are not the same question.
To give you a sense of how used this is: 8,684 people used the three points across June, July and August 2024, up from 7,128 the summer before. Parque de Elche alone accounted for 5,182 of them.
One caution. The tourist board’s own English page states that a disability certificate is required to use the bathing service. That is a Spanish document, and I have not found anywhere that says what a British visitor should present instead. If it matters to your trip, ring the beach service on 966 815 467 before you travel, or email playasymedioambiente@benidorm.org. Large groups are asked to give notice so a point does not get overwhelmed.
The Old Town, honestly
This is where I have to be straight with you, because it is the part of Benidorm I write about most and it is the part that will give you the most trouble.
The old quarter sits on a promontory. Most of its streets are perfectly manageable on wheels, and a set of steps and level changes near the Plaça de la Senyoria was replaced with a ramp some years ago, which opened up the route through to Plaça de Santa Ana. The Paseo de la Alameda and Carrer Major are fine.
Two things are not. The climb up from the port side involves a steep flight of steps. And Carrer dels Gats, the cobbled lane, has steps and level changes and is not passable.
You can get to the Balcón del Mediterráneo, whatever you have read
I want to deal with this one properly, because the received wisdom is wrong and I repeated it myself before somebody who has actually been up there put me right.
You will find it said in a good many places that the Balcón del Mediterráneo is out of reach in a wheelchair, on the grounds that it is a narrow old balustrade perched on a rock. If you arrive on foot from the wrong direction and meet the steps, you would believe it.
The professional audit says otherwise. TUR4all, the Spanish accessible tourism platform, has surveyed the Castle viewpoint at Plaça del Castell and records a ramp at the entrance with a gradient a wheelchair user can manage independently, an alternative flight of steps with contrasting anti-slip nosings for anyone with limited vision, uniform non-slip paving, and full wheelchair circulation across the viewpoint area itself. There are railings and skirtings where you would want them, and a shaded place to sit.
Two gaps the same audit records, and they are the honest caveats. There is no signage pointing any of this out, which is precisely why so many people conclude it cannot be done. And no adapted parking or accessible toilet is recorded at the viewpoint itself.
There is also more than one way in, and which one you choose matters more than anything else in this section. People arrive at the seafront end, meet a staircase, and conclude the whole promontory is shut to them. It is not. They have simply come at it from the hardest side.
The Old Town sits on a headland with a spine running down it. From the top end, you come in at Plaza de la Cruz and follow the Paseo de la Carretera to Plaza de la Constitución, then Carrer Major carries on down through Plaza de la Señoría and Plaza de Sant Jaume to Plaza Castelar, Plaza de Santa Ana and finally Plaça del Castell, where the viewpoint is. That is the route with vehicle access for part of its length. From the bottom end, whether that is Paseo de Colón on the Poniente side, the port, or the Mal Pas beach, you have the height to make up yourself.
Two to avoid outright. Carrer dels Gats, running parallel to Carrer Major, is cobbled and has steps. And the way up from the port is a steep staircase rather than a slope.
I have not put a tape measure or a gradient meter on any of it, and I am not going to invent numbers I have not taken. What I can tell you is that the route exists, that the viewpoint at the end of it has been professionally audited as reachable, and that arriving from the top is a different proposition entirely from arriving from the beach.
So: reachable, with the ramp, and considerably easier if you come in from the top end. Just do not expect a single sign to tell you so.
One general caution on this section. My source for the ordinary Old Town streets dates from 2018 and things have been dug up and relaid since. The viewpoint I am now confident about. The lanes I will walk again and update.
Hiring a scooter or a chair
You do not need to bring one. Benidorm has more mobility hire firms than anywhere else on the coast, and most will deliver to your hotel before you arrive and collect after you leave.
Three that are trading now, with premises in the town:
Amigo 24, at Avenida de l’Almirall Bernat de Sarrià 6, local 7, on 966 831 690. Published rates run from about €20 a day for a wheelchair or walker down to €60 a month, and €30 a day for a medium or large scooter, with weekly and monthly rates that bring the daily cost down sharply. Doubles are dearer. Free delivery and collection between nine in the morning and eight at night, and a €20 deposit.
SecurMobil, at Calle Lepanto, Edificio Gemelos 2, locals 28 to 30, on 965 869 552 or 600 455 677. Chairs, powered chairs, scooters, walkers, bath and toilet aids and transfer hoists, with a three day minimum hire and a delivery and collection service. They do not publish prices on the overview page, so you will have to ask.
EasyHire, on 966 445 812, working out of three points based at the Rio Park, Presidente and Pelicanos hotels. Scooters listed from €20 a day for a three wheeler up to €70 for the top limousine model. Their own pages quote two very different sets of figures depending on where you look, so get a price confirmed in writing before you commit.
Two things nobody tells you until you arrive. Several firms will only hire a powered scooter to somebody over 55 or with a certified walking disability, so have something with you. And you need somewhere to park and charge the thing overnight: some hotels provide it, some charge for it, and some will not have it at all. Ask the hotel before you book the scooter, not after.
Hotels and adapted rooms
Here is the arithmetic that matters, and it is the reason people end up disappointed.
Benidorm hotels are enormous and their adapted rooms are not numerous. Port Benidorm, for instance, has seven rooms with adaptations. Meliá Benidorm, a resort of several hundred rooms, has a handful. That is normal and it is not scandalous, but it means the adapted rooms in the good hotels are gone months before the ordinary ones are, and it means an adapted room is something you book, not something you request on arrival.
It also means that “accessible” as a filter on a booking site is close to worthless. It tells you the hotel believes it has something. It does not tell you whether the shower is a wet room or a tray with a lip, whether the seat folds down, whether there is turning space beside the bed, or whether the lift is big enough for a powered chair.
The single most useful thing I can point you at is this. TUI commissioned AccessAble, who audit access properly with tape measures rather than questionnaires, to survey hotels across its programme, and several Benidorm hotels are in it, including Meliá Benidorm, Port Benidorm and Hotel Riudor. The guides are free to read at accessable.co.uk whether or not you book through TUI. Door widths, bed heights, shower types, the lot. Read the guide for your hotel before you pay a deposit.
Hotels that come up repeatedly for adapted rooms are Meliá Benidorm, Medplaya Hotel Agir on the Avenida del Mediterráneo, the Gran Hotel Bali and the Hotel Presidente. I have not stayed in an adapted room in any of them, so I am reporting what is claimed rather than what I have seen, and I would rather say so.
Bars and restaurants, where I cannot help you much
I am not going to pretend to a knowledge I do not have. There is no reliable directory of step-free bars and restaurants in Benidorm. The Spanish accessible tourism platform TUR4all lists over a hundred audited places in the town, but almost all of them are transport, beaches, tourist offices and trails. On bars it has practically nothing.
What I can tell you from walking the place is the shape of the problem. The seafront and the newer avenues are level and the terraces on them are usually reachable, because they are on flat ground and the tables are outside. The Old Town interiors are the difficulty. They are small old rooms, often with a step at the door, and the lavatory is regularly down a narrow passage or up a flight at the back. A place can be perfectly easy to get into and impossible to stay in for three hours.
So the question to ask when you ring is not “are you wheelchair accessible”, to which everybody says yes. It is “is there a step at the door, and can I get to the toilet”. Ask the second half. It is the half that decides the evening.
If you have used somewhere here that got it right, tell me and I will build the list. That is genuinely how this section gets better.
The theme parks are better than you would expect
Terra Mítica is level throughout, with even non-slip paving and no significant gradients, which for a park built into a hillside is quite an achievement. It hires powered scooters and wheelchairs, but only to people with reduced mobility and only by telephone, on 96 500 43 00, with at least 24 hours’ notice, and only half the fleet can be pre-booked. There is a reduced entry rate for a disabled visitor and one companion, on production of a disability card and photo ID at the ticket office, with 33 per cent the minimum recognised degree. The most recent published figures I can find are €22 in low season and €26 in high, for each of the two of you, but confirm that at the box office rather than taking it from me. Card holders are given a wristband so they do not queue.
Aqualandia is built on ramps and slopes rather than steps, has adapted toilets and changing rooms, and lends wheelchairs from the information office. There is a reduced rate for the disabled visitor and their companion, again on production of documentation at the information office. Some of the slides will not suit everybody, for reasons that are about physics rather than policy.
Mundomar lends manual wheelchairs free and hires electric ones, and has a reduced entry rate. The approach ramp is steeper than ideal and you may want a push up it.
The paperwork nobody explains properly
This is the weak point of every accessibility guide to Spain written for British readers, mine included until I can improve it.
Spanish venues that offer disabled rates ask for the Spanish disability card, the tarjeta acreditativa, together with photo identification, and the threshold is a recognised degree of 33 per cent or more. What a British visitor holding a PIP award letter, a Blue Badge or a Nimbus Access Card should present instead is not published by any of the venues I have looked at, and I am not going to guess at it. Take whatever documentation you have, take more than you think you need, and expect to have a conversation.
On parking, the position is that the UK Blue Badge is not automatically valid nationwide in Spain. Recognition has been a matter for each town hall, most of the big tourist municipalities do honour it, and the Department for Transport has been working towards a national agreement. Display it inside the windscreen, use it only when the badge holder is actually in the car, and obey the local signs and time limits, which are not the same as the ones at home.
What I still owe you
Four things, and I would rather list them than paper over them. The staffed closing time at the accessible beach points, and whether the ramp and boardwalk can be used after the staff have gone. What a British visitor shows in place of a Spanish disability certificate. Which of the routes up to the castle viewpoint takes a car, and how far up it goes before it turns pedestrian. And a fresh walk of the Old Town lanes, because my source for those is eight years old.
I will update this page as I settle each one. If you have been here with a chair or a scooter and know something I have got wrong, or right, I would like to hear it.
Getting around is only half of what a Benidorm trip costs you. If you want the money side worked out the same way, Benidorm on the Cheap prices up airport parking, transfers, hotel board and the theme parks from four seasons of my own booking receipts, with the actual figures rather than the ones people repeat to each other. It is £7.99, and every update to the 2027 edition is free once you have bought it.
