Christmas and New Year in Lanzarote 2026: what is open, the parties and the Three Kings

Start with the hotel, because the festive dinners are where stays differ most. Some hotels put the Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners in the board you have booked, others sell them as a separate ticket. Checkin Diamar in Arrecife, for example, includes both buffets for half-board guests and charges €54 on 24 December and €59 on 31 December to everyone else (hotel’s 2026 menu, read 15 Nov 2026). All inclusive takes the question away at most hotels, which is why the main button on this page leads to our list of 43 all-inclusive hotels.

Next, book Timanfaya. The Montañas del Fuego ticket is sold online only, for a set date and time slot, at €30 for adults with children up to 6 free, and the Cabildo’s centres allow no changes or refunds once bought (CACT, read 15 Nov 2026). Cueva de los Verdes works the same way. Over the holidays, a slot bought well ahead is the safe choice. If you would rather keep your plans flexible, a coach tour with the entry included does the booking for you and can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before.

Then the days out that run to fixed departures: the Papagayo boats from Playa Blanca and Puerto Calero, the La Graciosa ferries from Órzola and the guided volcano walks, which take groups of 8 to 10. The full-day island highlights tour, rated 4.7 from 3,436 reviews, is the easiest single day if you have no car.

The dates fall like this: Christmas Day, 25 December 2026, is a Friday, New Year’s Day, 1 January 2027, is a Friday, and Epiphany, 6 January 2027, is a Wednesday. The Gobierno de Canarias lists 1 and 6 January as public holidays across the islands in its 2027 calendar. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are not public holidays.

The Cabildo’s art, culture and tourism centres answer the question for the island’s main sights: they are open every day of the year, holidays included (CACT, read 15 Nov 2026). That covers Timanfaya’s Montañas del Fuego, 9am to 3:45pm, with the 35-minute coach route, the geothermal demonstrations at Islote de Hilario and the El Diablo restaurant; Jameos del Agua, 10am to 6pm; Cueva de los Verdes, 9:30am to 4:45pm; Jardín de Cactus and Mirador del Río, 10am to 5pm; the Casa Museo del Campesino, 10am to 6pm and free; and the Castillo de San José art museum, 11am to 6pm. Our guide to the César Manrique sites compares the tickets.

Arrecife Bus, which runs the island’s lines, had published no festive timetable on 15 November 2026, so check the times for 25 December and 1 and 6 January on its site in the week before. Last season’s pattern for Arrecife’s town buses, as reported by La Voz de Lanzarote, was a last bus at 8pm on 24 and 31 December 2024 and a 6:30am start on 1 January. No festive night service was published, so if you are going out on New Year’s Eve, stay within walking distance of the party or book a taxi.

For the boats, Biosfera Express lists eight departures a day from Órzola to La Graciosa, from 8am to 6:30pm, at €29 return for a non-resident adult (read 15 Nov 2026). Neither the ferry companies nor the Papagayo boat operators had published holiday changes on that date, so pick your date on the booking calendar before you settle a plan.

In Spain and the Canaries the big family meal is Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, so hotel programmes usually put a special dinner on the 24th and the children’s events, with Santa, on the 25th. If a traditional Christmas Day lunch matters to your family, choose by what the hotel publishes for that day.

Two hotels on our list have published their 2026 programmes already. Bakour Lanzarote Splash in Puerto del Carmen, all inclusive with its own splash park, runs a children’s day on 24 December with face painting, letters to Santa and a treasure hunt, then on 25 December a craft morning, Santa’s arrival at the hotel at noon and a Christmas buffet dinner from 6:30pm. Checkin Diamar, across the road from Playa del Reducto in Arrecife, serves a Christmas Eve buffet from 6:30pm to 9:30pm with prawns, monkfish in cava and a chocolate yule log. Most other hotels publish their programmes in late November and December, so ask before you book which dinner is in your board.

The towns add their own touches. Last season Yaiza council’s programme brought Santa down Calle Limones in Playa Blanca at 5pm on 23 December and ran a Christmas corner in the Plaza del Carmen on 20 and 21 December, while Yaiza village built a 400 m² nativity scene beside the Plaza de Los Remedios, open through December and January (Yaiza council, 2025 programme). Teguise’s 2025 programme held a Christmas market in the old town from 5 to 8 December and a staging of the Nativity with the Rancho de Pascuas, the island’s traditional Christmas singers (Teguise council).

The custom to know is the twelve grapes: at midnight you eat one on each chime of the clock. The Canaries are an hour behind mainland Spain, so the national chimes on television come at 11pm Lanzarote time and the islands' own midnight an hour later. In 2024 Arrecife’s Castillo de San José hosted both broadcasts, at 11pm and at midnight (Biosfera Digital).

Puerto del Carmen holds the late party. Tías council’s 2025 programme put its Fiesta de Fin de Año in the Plaza del Varadero, by the old harbour, from 11:30pm with a DJ and the quartet Los Conejeros, with fireworks at midnight from the Avenida de las Playas (Ayuntamiento de Tías). It is the one to choose if you want to see the new year in outdoors.

Playa Blanca celebrates in daylight. Yaiza council’s 2025 programme ran El Último Atardecer, the last sunset of the year, in the Plaza del Carmen from 5pm, with urban music and DJs, ending in time for dinner. Arrecife does the same: last season’s pattern, as reported by La Voz de Lanzarote, was free music from noon to 7:30pm in La Recova, the Plaza de Las Palmas and La Plazuela, with a toast at 6pm, and El Almacén, the arts centre in the capital, held its own afternoon party from 1pm to 7pm in 2025. Teguise’s 2025 programme brought back a Gran Verbena, a night dance with orchestras, in the municipal marquee in the old town.

None of the councils has published its 2026 programme yet; they usually appear in the second half of December, so treat these times as last year’s pattern. For a night in, the hotel galas are the alternative: Bakour Lanzarote Splash hands out grapes and party favours at 11pm, gives a New Year’s speech at 11:45pm and starts its party at midnight, and Checkin Diamar’s New Year’s Eve buffet runs from 7pm to 10pm (hotels' 2026 programmes).

For Canarian children the Three Kings, not Santa, bring the presents, and they arrive on the evening of 5 January. The next day, Epiphany, is a public holiday, and bakeries sell the roscón de Reyes, a ring cake with a figure hidden inside.

The 2027 programmes are not out yet, so these are last season’s times. Puerto del Carmen has the best start: in January 2026 the Kings came in by boat to the Varadero harbour in the morning, met by families, residents and visitors, then paraded through the nearby streets to collect children’s letters in the plaza (Tías council). The 2025 programme timed their first appearance at 11:30am at the La Tiñosa quay, and the parade in Tías village followed at 6pm.

In the south, Yaiza council’s programme ran the Yaiza village parade at 5pm, with bouncy castles in the Plaza de la Alameda from 4pm, and the Playa Blanca parade at 7:30pm, from the bus station roundabout along Calle Jaime Quesada and Avenida Papagayo to the Plaza del Carmen. Arrecife’s big Cabalgata left Puerto Naos at 6pm for the Parque Islas Canarias, with floats and sweets thrown to the crowd (RTVC, 5 January 2026). Teguise’s parade winds through the historic centre after the Kings have visited every village in the municipality.

Lanzarote is warm by day through the holidays. AEMET’s climate normals for Lanzarote airport give an average high of 21.8°C and a low of 15.4°C in December, with 196 hours of sunshine and 3.8 days of rain, easing to 20.7°C and 14.0°C in January, with 3.2 rain days and 203 hours of sun. December is the island’s wettest month, but that still means 29 mm in the whole month.

The sea is around 20°C in December and 19°C in January on Turismo Lanzarote’s figures, fine for a swim in the middle of the day and in the sheltered Papagayo coves. Days are short: by our calculation the sun rises at about 7:45am and sets at about 6pm in Arrecife on Christmas Eve, giving 10 hours 17 minutes of daylight, so plan the boat trips and walks for the morning. Our month-by-month weather guide has the rest of the year.

The week between Christmas and New Year is the best time for the big days out, because the sights, the boats and the tours run as normal and the island is in holiday mood. New Year’s Day is a slow morning almost everywhere, so use it for the beach or a short trip.

For La Graciosa, the express ferry from Órzola, rated 4.7 from 1,177 reviews and from €29, gives you an open return the same day or the next, with free parking at the terminal (GetYourGuide, 15 Nov 2026). Our La Graciosa day-trip guide compares the ferries and the catamaran. On the volcanoes, the guided hike with transfers, rated 4.9 from 959 reviews and from €42, climbs a volcano before crossing the lava in a group of 8 at most.

With children, the submarine from Puerto Calero dives to 30 metres, takes ages from 2, and is rated 4.6 from 1,604 reviews, from €65. For an evening out that is not a gala, the MHT comedy drag dinner show in Puerto del Carmen, rated 4.7 from 802 reviews and from €49, serves a three-course dinner with the show, and its humour is cheeky but family-friendly (GetYourGuide, 15 Nov 2026).

Choose the resort by how you want to spend New Year’s Eve. Puerto del Carmen has the island’s late outdoor party with fireworks and the Kings' boat on 5 January, all around the Varadero harbour. Playa Blanca celebrates the last sunset in the Plaza del Carmen, where the Kings' parade also ends, and suits families who want the evening back at the hotel. Arrecife throws its party by day, and Costa Teguise is 17 to 23 minutes from the airport, with the old town of Teguise and its night-time verbena inland.

All inclusive is the simplest way to cover the festive dinners, and these hotels are all on our all-inclusive list except Hotel Fariones and Checkin Diamar. Festive weeks price differently from the rest of the winter, and the dated prices we hold are for other months, so we quote no nightly rates here: the hotel cards below show live prices for your own dates. Ask each hotel whether its Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners are in your board.