Hotel Gala, Palma de Majorca

...at the entrance to the Hotel Can Pastilla where we had booked a self catering apartment for the first week of June 2006.

Our first thought was the taxi must have dropped us off at the back of the hotel, so we lugged out cases round the block to the front, or so we thought, the front looked more like the back than what we thought the back was. So we picked up our cases once again and went round the only side that we hadn't yet seen. ...
...to book in the Gala Hotel instead. We picked up our cases again and off we went, following the directions on the bit of paper.

We sort of thought that we would book in at the Gala and then have to bring our cases back to the Can Pastilla, which was beginning to bug us because we were getting a little fed up of lugging them around.

Hotel Gala, Can Pastilla, Majorca.

On first sight the hotel is not terribly ... more

Holiday Fun! (although this may not look as if it is connected to the review it is)

We got up at some unearthly time of the morning, drove to Gatwick, flew on a prompt, clean plane, landed in Majorca, everything was going so smoothly. We took a taxi, to Can Pastilla, and asked to be dropped at the entrance to the Hotel Can Pastilla where we had booked a self catering apartment for the first week of June 2006.

Our first thought was the taxi must have dropped us off at the back of the hotel, so we lugged out cases round the block to the front, or so we thought, the front looked more like the back than what we thought the back was. So we picked up our cases once again and went round the only side that we hadn't yet seen. Then we went round the front again. While my husband stood and pondered what to do next I read the rather scruffy bits of paper stuck in the window which told me that we needed to book in the Gala Hotel instead. We picked up our cases again and off we went, following the directions on the bit of paper.

We sort of thought that we would book in at the Gala and then have to bring our cases back to the Can Pastilla, which was beginning to bug us because we were getting a little fed up of lugging them around.

Hotel Gala, Can Pastilla, Majorca.

On first sight the hotel is not terribly large and rather dingy looking. We mounted the steps at the front and went to book in. A woman booked us in, very curtly told us that our room was there, asked if we wanted sun on our balcony or a view over the garden and gave us a swipe card to get in our room. She held onto our passports and nodded us on our way pointing out that the lift was round the corner and at the end of the corridor. She didn't smile once! We did, we had been travelling for just over seven hours and were happy to be at our holiday destination.

She had mentioned that buffet breakfast was 3.50 euros each if we wanted it and dinner was 7 euros. We asked for a fridge which cost an extra 15 euros which wasn't really much but we didn't bother with the safety deposit box and the television came free but then all the programmes were in Spanish or German so we didn't watch much.

We found the lift, it was very small, big enough for us two and two cases and not much room for anyone else, but as there wasn't anyone else it didn't matter.

Got out at the top floor, followed some very confusing room number directions, we never did get the hang of how the rooms were numbered, 152 was next door to 174, and found our room, we had plumped for sun on the balcony because my husband likes to doze in the afternoon and I like to sit in the sun. We swiped the card, opened the door, had a look in and shut it quietly again. Back down the lift, round the corner, back to reception. 'There is a man in the room' we said, a couple of times before it sank in. The woman looked shocked, 'What is he doing?' she asked, 'Sleeping!' we replied.

There followed a bit of Spanish with a younger woman (this one smiled a couple of times too) and gave us another swipe key. Off we went again.

Our room this time was on the first floor, overlooking a rather small swimming pool and the road, with no sun at any time of day I was to learn.

It was ok. We like a bit of an adventure, and we had giggled a bit even though it was a great relief to put our cases down one last time.

Disadvantages!

Firstly we had booked a self catering apartment, so hadn't brought with us our travel kettle, mugs and tea bags, which we generally never go without. We had looked at the website and had booked an apartment with a small kitchen, a living area with a balcony and a bedroom. What we got was a room.

So we went out, had a cup of tea at a very nice place on the sea front, asked a few questions and went and bought a travel kettle, mugs, tea bags and milk.

Later in the afternoon we had unpacked, changed, had a paddle, bit of an explore and we decided we would have a shower, dress up a bit and go out for dinner.

Uh oh! No hot water…..

However hot the weather there is no way I can shower with cold water.

So we washed, changed and on the way out mentioned to the woman who never smiled about the hot water. She muttered that it had been working last night, asked what room number we had and wandered off.

I will say here that we did have hot water during the rest of the week, but not quite as often as we would have expected. Sometimes it was hottish, sometimes it was sort of luke warm and sometimes it was downright cold.

The room was rather on the small side which meant the end of one side of our twin beds was almost touching the wardrobe and my husband regularly bumped his knee going round the end of the bed to get anywhere, and it was a squeeze to get in the bathroom because the end of my twin bed meant the door only opened halfway.

I was actually a bit cross about all of this and next morning got out our paperwork to phone the people we booked with only to see in big letters, 'THE COMPANY WILL TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY UPGRADES'

Upgrades? Yep, our self catering apartment was 2* and this hotel was 3* (although I couldn't see how)

That day the water was hot so I didn't bother ringing anyone or complaining.

The Advantages.

This is going to be hard, but I am trying to be fair as we actually had a great week doing pretty much nothing on the beach.

The hotel is pretty quiet, no loud evening entertainment, not many young children running about; in fact we didn't see that many people at all. The dining room looked quite adequate and the food looked pretty standard Spanish hotel type food but we didn't eat in the hotel all week. There is a bar at the front with a large television in one corner and tables to sit at and sip a drink, which we did once. The bar man smiled but didn't appear to want to enter into any conversation; I did try both in English and Spanish. There were only other people in the bar when the football was on and they didn't show all of the English game, although I believe we didn't miss much.

The pool is rather on the small side, but then it was nearly always empty so I guess if you want to swim alone that is an advantage, there are a few sun loungers round the pool which seemed to get the sun for about two hours in the middle of each day and there is a shower at the side of the pool to rinse off after a swim. We didn't use the pool because the beach was lovely and only 70 metres away.

The hotel boasts internet access at 2 euros an hour, there are two screens to access it from which were often occupied but it is there.

It also boasts a library, free to people staying at the hotel, I think that the books are probably ones left behind by holiday makers but at least it gave me access to more books than I had taken with me and I left mine to be added to the library at the end of the week.

The location is a huge advantage, 70 metres from a quiet, beautiful white sandy beach leading into warm clear waters that had very small waves, the sea here is safe for children as the beach shelves very little, in fact I had to wade out a long way to get deep enough to swim but it really was lovely.

The area is flat and so wonderful for walking or cycling, you can hire bicycles, tandems or those things that four people ride around on locally, you can take a bus or taxi into Palma itself or you can hire a car and explore the beautiful island of Majorca, we have done all of those in the past so didn't this time. The taxi rank is just a few minutes walk away or the hotel staff on duty will phone for a taxi if asked. I don't recommend this though because it was more expensive than from the taxi rank round the corner.

There was a man staying in the hotel that used a wheelchair, inside the hotel were ramps, but I haven't a clue how he got in from the street because there were only a few steep steps leading to the entrance, there may have been another entrance but I never found one.

Ah! I haven't mentioned the ants. Ants? I hear you ask. Yes, we had ants in our room but we bought some ant spray in a great little shop that seemed to sell everything and so long as we remembered to spray (cough, choke,) it round the edges of the floor every evening and morning we managed to stop them sharing our bed.

And we got bitten; I never saw or heard a mosquito in our room or outside in the evenings or anytime, but every morning we both woke with a couple more itchy bites. We bought some mosquito stuff which we put on every night, but still got up in the morning scratching a bit more.

The room was cleaned and the beds made fairly early every morning and the maid was polite and smiled at us, she mopped the floors, folded towels if we left them lying around and really we had only praise for her because she seemed to be doing her job pretty well in that hot weather.

There is not much else I could say about the hotel, the walls of our small room were painted white, but not recently, the bathroom door had a lock on the outside but not on the inside, the bottom of the door was ragged and scruffy, the curtains and bedspreads matched, quite bright patterned material, there was an extra blanket in the wardrobe which I used as an extra pillow, folded up, the beds were hard and not at all comfortable, the sheets moved when we did and wrinkled up.

Our history.

Over the last eleven years we have stayed at self catering complexes, sailed the oceans on the QE2, flown to South Africa a couple of times and stayed in a top hotel on Durban sea front, twice stayed in South Africa's oldest Game Reserve, stayed in Spanish Hotels ranging from 2* (which was comfy and the food was lovely) to 5*. We have taken a cheap last minute Thompson cruise which we couldn't better, and we decided this time that we fancied a self catering apartment to lol around in and cook and eat on the balcony when we couldn't be bothered to go out.

I guess really we have been spoilt a bit and have come to expect hotels to have room enough to walk round the bed without bumping our knees and running hot water all the time so that we know when we want a shower it is there. We don't think we will be going self catering for some years but having said that it wasn't quite what we expected.

We really enjoyed our time on the beach, and we love sitting outside Spanish cafés watching the world go by while we eat (and some fine food we had too) but not for every meal for a week.

We took a late booking and for the money we had a lovely time, the sea was warm and calm, the weather was almost perfect, the food was good, the people we chatted to were nice, but I felt a little cheated about the accommodation.

I have put below the price per person per night as stated on a website I found for the Gala Hotel in Can Pastilla, Majorca, also a website address for anyone who thinks this might be for them, but there are much better hotels that I could recommend above this one.

49 EUR for a double room per night.

http://www.hoteltravel.com/spain/mallorca/gala_mallorca.htm

The only photo I have of the hotel is from the website because it wasn't something I thought worth photographing.

Thanks for reading: Sue x
 

...less