Irish all-inclusive holiday makers limited to six drinks a day in popular Spanish resorts

Visitors to the Balearic Islands are being hit with the new rules which apply to resorts across Mallorca and Ibiza.

Travellers visiting resorts in Magaluf, El Arenal, Playa de Palma, and San Antonio will be limited to three drinks at lunch and three at dinner.

Outside of those meal times, visitors looking for a drink will have to pay the retail price for beverages which will leave them with higher costs than they may have expected.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, TheNovelTraveller.com writer Michelle Walsh Jackson said that the new rules are to target party areas of the Islands.

“It really is because they have had terrible issues with things like 'balconing', which is where young people jump from balcony to balcony and their own safety is at stake,” she explained.

“It has really been horrible for young people living there and as well, the trash in the evenings, in the streets and the unruly behaviour.”

“At night, it is quite crazy. In some of the bars, they will have foam laid out in the basements and people splashing themselves in bikinis all over the place and you know, drinking and drinking games, so they are trying to curtail that and make it a safer, nicer place to holiday.”

She said that anyone who has booked an all-inclusive holiday should check with their resort to see if they will be affected.

“If you’re not going to one of these resorts, and specific parts of those resorts, your hotel is not going to be included in this.”

“This is a specific issue the Spanish are trying to target to make it more comfortable for everybody going on their holidays there,” she explained.

“You do need to check.”

Walsh Jackson said that travel agents may be able to change your booking if you get in contact with them.

“Once you have signed a contract, you really are tied into it but you would hope that your travel agent or your tour operator would be able to facilitate you if you needed to change that,” she said.

“So that is the first thing I would do. Find out if you are affected because it is not a blanket ban, the whole of Spain is not going to shut down for all-inclusives."