The Best Laid Plans (Sol Mirlos Tordos Hotel (Palma Nova, Spain))

Member Name: rosebud2001

Product:	Sol Mirlos Tordos Hotel (Palma Nova, Spain)
Date:	24/08/09 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Location, staff, level of service, food, facilities

Disadvantages: Crowds, soulless bars, some of the other guests...*ahem*!

When it came to me booking this year's family holiday, I decided to spend a considerable time researching online, to find a hotel and resort town that would be suitable for my daughter, and one myself and my sister would like too.

As regular readers of my reviews will be aware, she is autistic, and this means she can be both very unsociable and very immature. As a result I thought the best thing for her would be a hotel which offered a kids' club and had plenty of entertainment laid on. I consulted with her at all stages and she was happy for me to choose a hotel along these lines, only caring that the hotel had a pool and was "near the seaside".

I finally decided upon Majorca, an island we had visited several times when my husband was alive. We usually went to the north back then, enjoying Peurto Pollensa in particular, however this time I decided to choose a resort town on the south of the island, allowing relatively easy access to the city of Palma de Mallorca.

I finally chose Palma Nova, a town I had visited with my husband over ten years ago when we had taken the bus from the city of Palma for a look around. We found it a pretty average looking resort at the time, with my husband complaining it was "too British", which is a fair assessment.

I eventually chose the Sol Mirlos Tordos hotel - I have stayed in several Melia hotels in Spain and one thing I can safely say about the Sol Melia group is that they know how to run hotels, so whilst a Melia was outwith my budget, I was happy to book a hotel from one of their cheaper brands.

The Sol Mirlos Tordos is located very centrally in Palmanova and while it isn't right on the beach, you are only a five minute stroll away from it.

The complex consists of two hotels, the Mirlos (blackbirds) and Tordos (thrushes). We had booked an all-inclusive stay, meaning we would be in the Tordos. Guests staying at the Mirlos stay on a half-board basis.

~~Checking In~~

Upon arrival I was impressed at how quickly we were checked in. The lobby area was light and airy, and the reception staff processed new arrivals quickly.

Initially I was only given one key, but I asked for a second for my sister and received it without any problems.

As all-inclusive guests we were given one piece of paper to show to access these facilities - receiving one card per guest would have made things a little easier but rules are rules and you only get one per room.

There are two very small lifts and as we were on the seventh floor we were concerned about getting in with our bags but luckily for us we had arrived at a fairly quiet time and even more fortunately, all three of us, plus bags, fitted in the lift...although it was a tight squeeze!

~~The Room~~

First impressions were not brilliant - the room itself was very small, and I initially worried about how three of us would cope for a week in it.

We had two single beds pushed together and a foldaway bed for my daughter, which had a yellow Flintstones bed cover. The Flintstones theme is used throughout the hotel and I started to realise we might have problems when my daughter, upon seeing the bed cover instantly declared it "vile" and removed it from the bed!

There was a small wardrobe with the princely total of six hangers, and also a small chest of drawers on either side of the two single beds. Through a process of strictly dividing space amongst the three of us we managed to unpack all our clothes away neatly, but this left no space for suitcases in there, meaning they had to stay out all week.

The room had a desk with a TV. The TV received a number of UK channels, but reception was hit and miss - for instance sometimes we could easily watch BBC1 whereas other times the sound would come and go. Similarly, the ITV channels were sometimes available with variable sound, othertimes they were not available at all.

There were plenty of Spanish channels along with a handful in French, German and Italian.

Overall the furnishings in the room looked tired, and whilst the beds were reasonably comfortable and none of the drawers were stuck, it was obvious the room had not been remodelled for some years.

There was also a large ceiling fan, along with air conditioning. I am not a fan of air conditioning and opted to use the fan when we were really hot, but by and large the room remained fairly cool throughout, despite soaring temperatures in Majorca the week we were there.

We had a small balcony which gave us lovely views over the Bay of Palma. Unfortunately the balcony only had two seats, which led to occasional spats given the fact all three of us enjoyed sitting out there to enjoy the view.

The bathroom was surprisingly nice and clearly had been recently refurbished, leading me to wonder why the refurbishments hadn't continued to the rooms themselves.

There was a decent shower over the bath and the tub was also a reasonable size, making a change from some of the smaller tubs that hotel chains seem to favour these days. The shower curtain did its job and was spotlessly clean. There was a large basin with huge mirror which was great for getting ready for nights out, and a bidet beside the toilet. There were towels for three guests in the room from the off, which made a welcome change from visits to Travelodges who despite being told there will be three guests, find it impossible to add towels for the full party.

~~Dining~~

We arrived late but were just in time to hit the restaurant for the last hour of dinner. We had to show our piece of paper on entry and then find ourselves a table. Food was served buffet style and you helped yourself.

This was the routine for the entire holiday and overall I was impressed with the food on offer.

Chicken nuggets and chips were on the menu every day, and my daughter took full advantage of this. In fact it became something of a standing joke that we knew what she would get every lunctime and dinnertime, but I am glad to say the menu was overall far more varied than that.

There was always a good selection of meat or fish on offer, and a chef was on hand to freshly grill items such as chicken breast, cuttlefish or lamb chops for you. Every day there was a paella style dish on offer, as well as salads and pizza. I did, however, find the salad choice a little limiting however. There was also soup, breads and a dessert area.

You could help yourself to drinks too, which included Coca-Cola and Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite as well as water, and white, red or rose wine. I tried the rose but sadly struggled with it - perhaps it would work better as a paint stripper such was its acidity!

Overall we were impressed with the restaurant and the food and whilst there was an element of repetition it wasn't so great to drive us out for dinner elsewhere, however sometimes there were long queues at lunchtime and dinnertime. Given the majority of guests were British they tended to arrive at the start of each sitting so we learned to wait until an hour in before going in which led to a quieter, and more pleasant, dining experience.

The restaurant was always kept spotlessly clean by the staff who were both friendly and very efficient and cleaning and setting tables.

There is also a Flintstones dining area called "Betty's Kitchen" where youngsters can have a character filled dinner with Fred, Barney and Dino every evening at 6.30 pm. As you can imagine, my daughter was thoroughly disinterested at the prospect of this however!

~~The Pool~~

There were three pools at the hotel complex and getting a sunbed meant being up at 7.30 am with a towel to blag one. Frankly, I couldn't be bothered and was happy to sit at a table and chair nearby when I went for a swim, however it did irk to see beds with towels on and no-one near.

The pools were pretty cold however, even in temperatures topping 30 degrees Celsius and they were also very crowded, not helped by people hogging space with huge inflatables purchased for a few Euros nearby.

There was a sunbed area upstairs from the pool on the roof of the Tordos bar and you could usually get a bed there if you just fancied sunbathing.

Round at the side of the Mirlos was the kids' pool and this had slides and looked a lot of fun for smaller children.

~~Entertainment~~

I chose this hotel because there was plenty of entertainment on site, including kids' clubs for my daughter. However it soon became apparent that the thought of joining a kids' club was a step too far for her and she refused point blank to participate. This was something of a blow as there were three kids' clubs running which catered for kids from 4 months up to 16 years, but you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink it!

There were keep fit activities during the day for adults, as well as archery and skittles for all the family.

There was internet available in the bar areas of both the Tordos and the Mirlos, and you paid for this. There were leather seats on offer in the Tordos but some people seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to sit on these whilst dripping wet from the pool and while baring more tattooed flesh than one would expect to see in an area such as this, but that's Brits abroad for you I suppose.

The main entertainment stage was beside the pool and located between the Mirlos and Tordos. We watched some of the shows - for instance the entertainment staff danced and mimed along to songs from "Grease" and "High School Musical" but you had to be out there early if you wanted a seat.

Bar service was swift and fairly friendly. There are two bars - one in the Tordos which also serves as a pool bar, and one in the Mirlos. The Mirlos bar and lobby area has been recently refurbished and as a result is far sleeker than the Tordos, but both bars are ultimately pretty soulless. There is entertainment available some evenings inside in the Mirlos - we saw one distinctly average cabaret act one evening, but found it all a little too loud for our tastes.

If you are an all-inclusive guest, bar service ends at 12.00 am, and it's also worth noting that you can only get the number of drinks to correspond with the number of people your card covers - so don't go thinking you can get double rounds. If you want to pay, the bar remains open until 1.00 am.

All inclusive drinks are local brands and I can confirm the local vodka, charmingly called "Jerikoff", was absolutely vile. My sister was unimpressed with the draught Amstel lager too. You can pay extra for branded drinks, and she ended up getting bottled San Miguel for 2.50 Euros.

~~Other Services~~

Much to my amazement, there were self service laundry facilities available in the hotel and I was actually annoyed I hadn't known about this before I travelled as I could have cut the amount of clothes I packed in half!

It cost 3 Euros for the washer and another 3 Euros for the dryer. There were a couple of comfy seats available in there if you wanted to wait while the washing was done. Detergent was available to buy from reception but I was a tightwad and went to a supermarket where I got 4 times the amount for the same price of a Euro.

There is a safe in each room and it costs 20 Euros to rent the key although you do get 5 Euros back when you return the key to reception upon checkout.

You can also sign up to the Sol Melia rewards programme which allows you to keep your room a little later than the 12.00 pm checkout time for free. We were not due to leave until 4.30 pm so it was useful to be able to keep the room until 3.00 pm. Thereafter we were allowed to store our bags in a store cupboard near reception.

~~Final Thoughts~~

I did enjoy our stay at the Sol Mirlos Tordos and found the staff in particular to be fantastic - all were friendly, efficient and productive.

It is worth bearing in mind however that rooms in the Tordos in particular are small, and if you have a room overlooking the pool in the Tordos there will be noise from the entertainment which continues until midnight - so this might not be ideal if you have children.

You also have to consider the fact that some people stay in hotels once a year and do not seem to realise that there may well be a lot of people sleeping at 4.00 am so think it's perfectly acceptable to chatter and scream all the way down the corridor to their room. The walls are pretty thin so it's worth bearing this in mind if you want peace and quiet.

The lifts were also a continual pain - quite often we would give up and walk the seven flights downstairs. I did try to walk up once and another guest who tried this quite rightly remarked "you wouldn't want to do it twice"!

Overall however I enjoyed my holiday here, although I wouldn't return here due to the sheer size of the place and the crowds staying here (together both hotels have nearly 700 rooms) the location, particularly the proximity to the beach, makes this a real winner and definitely one to consider if you are travelling to Majorca with children.

If you are travelling without kids however this might not be the place for you - the Mirlos Tordos are quite clearly aimed fairly and squarely at families, although in future I'll find something a little more sedate for my daughter, who has no interest in these facilities!

Summary: Family friendly hotel complex in Palma Nova