Anyone who has watched Take Me Out, the hilarious dating show presented by Paddy McGuinness will know once a date has been made, they are whisked off to the tropical ‘Isle Of Fernando‘.
The real name of this location is never revealed on the show, all you see is a beautiful beach location, a stunning hotel and the awkwardness that is the date.
Following the huge popularity of this show to audiences all over the UK, there suddenly became a huge amount of calls to tour operator sales teams asking where the Isle Of Fernando is and how much it would cost to book.
So here I reveal for you, it is actually Tenerife, which is part of the Canary Islands. Tenerife is actually a number one seller for a number of companies such as Directline Holidays, Thomas Cook and Thomson, therefore this only pushed sales even further. You can find Tenerife just off the North West coast of Africa, however it will always fall under the Mediterranean in regards to descriptions of location.
Below are some facts about Tenerife:
- Owned by Spain
- It’s a volcanic island
- Temperatures during the summer are in the late 20’s C
- The capital city is Santa Cruz
- The language is Spanish
Due to its volcanic nature, the Island has quite a unique appearance, which is difficult to describe unless you’ve seen it. This volcanic history has given Tenerife the nickname ‘the Hawaii of Europe’, not the worst name to pick up, given Hawaii has been a top tourist attraction for as long as Thomas Cook have sold holidays.
Anywho, back to Take Me Out, the location they stay in is Puerto De La Cruz, while you can even book the hotel they film in. Admittedly, the hotel isn’t cheap, being 5 star, but it’s called the Botanico Hotel and has four different restaurants, meaning you can switch up what you eat for dinner each night without even leaving the premises. The food will vary from a great tasting curry in the Asian restaurant, local cuisine in the Spanish one, the overly typical foods you expect from the Italian restaurant and, to be honest, I don’t know what nationality of food the other restaurant is, so it is probably catered to the English audience they expect to arrive each summer. The swimming pool is relatively large, while there is also a jacuzzi and a spa.
The spa staff seem pretty decent, seems like an odd thing to point out, however you would be surprised by the amount of grimy disgusting staff you can get in hotel spa’s around the world, especially in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. I’m not sure how overly qualified they were at massaging, nor that they really knew what they were doing, but they weren’t creepy or overly forward, which is important.
One common misconception by many early on was that it might actually be the real location Isla Fernando in Brazil, but rest assured this would be far from affordable for Channel Four. No, no, this is a cheap trip over to Tenerife, where the Brits are there in packs.
Obviously, we are talking about the location for the second series of the show, however the third series actually flew them off to Cyprus, however the one we always think of when we watch the old shows being repeated is the Tenerife location.
The sixth season of Take Me Out ended filming at the end of February 2014, while we are still awaiting news if there will be a next season, however Paddy has admitted him and Peter Kay are working on a new project, most likely to be a new Max and Paddy.