"A lovely hotel, but the offer isn't really 24-hour all-inclusive"
There are five Riu hotels near the Playa del Palma and this is possibly the furthest away from the beach, which is about 5-7 minutes’ walk away down a busy and narrow road lined with Spar stores and large drinking establishments, predominately of the sports bar / bierkeller variety. Having said that, once inside the hotel things are calm, clean and organised and the staff are lovely and helpful.
The hotel rooms are on five floors and surround a pool area, which felt crowded (the hotel was full), but there were always sunbeds available and the pool staff were great at assisting where necessary to find space. There was enough shade even for the very hot days.
The food in the main restaurant was excellent and varied, including some show cooking. We didn’t go to the specialty restaurant, which alternated between different cuisines and didn’t need to be booked. Pepe’s Food, the snack bar at the far end of the pool area was also good – with more variety and of a higher standard than at other Riu hotels we have visited. Our daughter is vegetarian and there was always something she wanted to eat.
The room itself was very clean, with lovely modern décor. Our view was towards the inside of the hotel – ie. across the pool to the block at the other side – and because we were on the top floor we could see the mountains beyond. We could also see the airport over the top of the buildings and watched planes lining up to land from our balcony overnight. This wasn’t particularly noisy and we enjoyed seeing the stream of planes.
One slightly odd thing about the room design is that there’s an opaque window between the bathroom and the bedroom area. Also the bathroom has a movement sensitive light. This meant that it was impossible to go to the toilet during the night without the light going on and lighting up (to some extent) the whole space.
Contrary to other reviews I have seen, there was no noise at all during the night. Perhaps that’s because we asked for a high and quiet room. There was also very good air-conditioning in the room, which was particularly welcome on really hot days and nights.
This hotel advertises itself as 24-hour all-inclusive, but the offer isn’t what I’ve come to expect from visits to other Riu hotels across three different continents in recent years.
• Pool towels – these aren’t automatically offered – you can borrow towels if you are able to leave a deposit of 10 euros per towel
• Water in rooms – apparently local laws prevent the hotel from providing bottled water for environmental reasons. Rather than supplying a reusable bottle (perhaps for a deposit, following the logic of the pool towels), the hotel suggests that guests go and purchase a bottle of water from a local shop, which can then be refilled at the tap by the bar. This still means plastic waste, which really doesn’t make sense in the light of Riu’s environmental policy.
• The restaurants are not open as long as restaurants in other Riu hotels I’ve visited. This felt restricting. There was food available for late arrivals and early leavers, but this was very basic and not particularly appetising. There didn’t seem to be 24-hour food for regular guests.
• My main gripe, though, is around the all-inclusive beverage offer. All-inclusive alcohol is only available in the restaurants at lunch and dinner – and this is just beer or wine, limited to three drinks per guest per meal. You cannot take your drink out of the restaurant. The bars were all selling alcoholic drinks, so they were permitted, but not included - this is definitely not what I understand all-inclusive to mean, though it looked like loads of guests were happy to pay. Even some more premium non-alcoholic drinks, including some coffees, were charged for.
There was some daytime and evening entertainment in the hotel, but much less than I’ve experienced in other Riu hotels. There are no shows, but most evenings there’s either a singer in the outdoor theatre (which can be heard from balconies across the site) or an activity like bingo. We didn’t use the gym, but it looked good.
Playa del Palma is about 30 minutes by bus from the main historical centre of Palma – the airport sits between the old city and the beach resort. The buses were easy to navigate for a visit into the old city. We also hired a car to enable us to explore further afield. Parking at the hotel is in a basement car park with lots of space (though they say subject to availability) and costs 10 euros a day. Free on road parking is also available nearby, though not so secure.
In summary, we enjoyed our stay here, but would probably not return just on the basis of wanting to stay at the hotel again. However, if we needed to be near Palma again, we would definitely consider one of the Riu properties.
