The Sol Balmoral is a large resort style hotel located in Calas De Majorca a purpose built resort on the quieter side of the island. I stayed there for 7 nights in October 2006 with my husband and two daughters aged 13 and 9 (at the time) on an All Inclusive basis.
Check In
My first impression ... Read review
Advantages: Lovely Resort and well equipped hotel Disadvantages: unfriendly and understaffed
The Sol Balmoral is a large resort style hotel located in Calas De Majorca a purpose built resort on the quieter side of the island. I stayed there for 7 nights in October 2006 with my husband and two daughters aged 13 and 9 (at the time) on an All Inclusive basis.
Check In
My first impression of the hotel on arrival was that it was clean and bright. We had to queue at the reception desk to check in. I had booked a double and ... ...the reason I chose the Sol Balmoral. There were two large swimming pools and two smaller shallow pools. There was a shooting range, tennis courts, outside showers, archery facilities and many more activities. When I paid for the holiday we paid full price for my oldest daughter as she was over 12 years old, but we found that she was too young to participate in the majority of the activities as children had to be 14 years old or over. She was very ... more
The Sol Balmoral is a large resort style hotel located in Calas De Majorca a purpose built resort on the quieter side of the island. I stayed there for 7 nights in October 2006 with my husband and two daughters aged 13 and 9 (at the time) on an All Inclusive basis.
Check In My first impression of the hotel on arrival was that it was clean and bright. We had to queue at the reception desk to check in. I had booked a double and a twin room but was allocated two twins. When I mentioned this to the receptionist she tutted and grumbled. I said loudly to my husband that she was rude and her tone altered a little.
Rooms The rooms were pleasant, clean and bright but very basic. Each room and had a bathroom with shower, toilet and sink which was clean and well kept. There were no facilities to make a drink, no telephone or anything else other than the beds, a small chest of drawers and the bathroom. Each room did have a balcony and the views of the coastline were spectacular.
Facilities The facilities and entertainment listed for the hotel were the reason I chose the Sol Balmoral. There were two large swimming pools and two smaller shallow pools. There was a shooting range, tennis courts, outside showers, archery facilities and many more activities. When I paid for the holiday we paid full price for my oldest daughter as she was over 12 years old, but we found that she was too young to participate in the majority of the activities as children had to be 14 years old or over. She was very disappointed I was really cross as this should have been mentioned.
In the corner of the reception area is a table equipped with five computers. Internet minutes could be purchased from reception at a cost of £2 for half an hour. The older kids gathered around this area most of the time and seemed quite happy to wait their turn to check emails and socialize with the others.
Family Friendly The hotel is very family friendly; the majority of residents were family groups with children. There is a kids club every morning with a club room which was large and fairly well equipped. Entertainment staff took the kids club through the day and then entertained the children on stage at night with talent shows quizzes and competitions. There are play parks and shallow pools for the children and the overall atmosphere amongst the kids was happy.
Food
Restaurant There is one restaurant with is large, clean and well decorated. On the first night the restaurant was a novelty and we enjoyed the food, but the following night it was the exact same range of food available, which was quite low quality. All of the staff appeared stressed and unfriendly. Halfway through the week the hotel ran out of tomato sauce, apple juice and pineapple juice. If you asked the staff for any of these things they were quite rude and unhelpful.
Snack Bar Outside the normal dining times there is a small snack bar which is accessed through the outside door at the back of the restaurant. The snacks available every day were the cold meat and cheese left over from the dinner sitting, small cube chips, calamari and fruit. Not a great selection, it was opened at 7pm and the food was not replenished so when it was gone it was gone. If the kids were hungry later on there was nothing left.
Bar There was one bar to cope with at a rough guess 600 guests there was always a huge queue and the staff again were unfriendly and quite rude. The drinks were poor quality. There was a range of soft drinks, tea coffee, beer or spirits, everything hot or cold was served in a small clear plastic beaker, tea and coffee came from a vending machine and for spirits the glass was half filled with ice to give the smallest measure possible. A lady in front of me in the queue asked for a double drink without ice. The barman was furious, went to speak to his boss and slammed the beaker on the bar in front of the shocked looking lady. On another occasion we saw the other barman throw a plastic chair at a guest.
Location Calas is a lovely resort. Around 10 minutes walk from the Hotel is the purpose built resort centre with shops, cafes, bars and amusements for the children. The whole place has a safe, relaxed and family friendly feel about it. In the brochure you can see views of the sea very close to the hotel, but it is on a cliff. The beach is a good 15 minutes walk away. It is a beautiful beach with huge waves I'm not quite sure how relaxed I'd feel with very young children as the current is strong, they flew the amber flag all the time we were there, but for older kids its brill.
If you hire a car, there is a Safari park around 20 minutes drive which made a great day out that the girls really enjoyed. Felantix is a very pretty town also around 20 minutes away which has a great street market; leaflets in reception in the hotel have details of the days that it's on and around 40 minutes drive is the larger town of Porto Cristo. We booked to go and see Pirates an acrobatic show in Magaluf through one of the tour reps. We were picked up outside the Hotel by coach, the journey to the show took over an hour but it was excellent. It cost £140 for two adults and two children and was worth every penny, a meal, unlimited soft drinks and sangria are included in the price of the tickets.
Value I booked the holiday online through lastminute.com. We paid £1200 for one week. I would recommend the resort of Calas De Majorca but not the Sol Balmoral. As the service and food was poor we went out to eat and drink most of the week, so really ended up paying twice. The activities listed would have partly compensated for the poor service if my daughter had been able to join in. Overall I wouldn't go back to the Sol Balmoral and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The hotel was inadequately staffed to cope with the number of guests and scrimped on food and drink. I would definitely go back to Calas and book different accommodation.
