Residencia Calanova

I’ve just came back from a 4 nights stay at the Calanova Sports Residence. The pretty new hotel is about 20 minutes by bus from Palma, located in the middle of the nautical port. It was great to enjoy a less touristic and more authentic area - delicious restaurants nearby and all the commodities you’ll need. With your stay, you’ll also get access to nautical experiences: paddle stand up and kayak. It was great to try for free! Staff was really nice and helpful, as we’re arriving late they prepared carefully everything facilitating the late checkin for us. Great value for money - I will definitely recommend this hotel.

We had a really great time here in late September. When we got to the hotel there was no one at reception but there was a sign to say that you should use the front desk service at the calanova offices, so we went there and the person was very friendly and checked us in. Our room was amazing, it was an end one looking over the harbour, it was spacious, clean and modern. We received welcome drink vouchers for the rooftop bar and lots of information about the hotel and the area. The pool was really clean, there were always plenty of sun beds and it was nice to chill there for a bit after paddle boarding. The lady at the rental place was really nice as well and explained how to use the paddleboard as we had never done it before. In terms of the breakfast, we really enjoyed the quality of the food, its not a traditional breakfast buffet but you get to pick certain items off the menu, which the staff explain to you. Oh and you eat your breakfast at the rooftop bar overlooking the harbour which is an experience in itself. The service is a bit slow but as we were on holiday we did not really mind. The area around the hotel is not very lively there is one bar literally as you walk out, we went there for food as we were warned off the hotel restaurant and it was really good. We were surprised as the bar doesn’t look like much from the outside but can definitely recommend it. If you walk about 10 minutes to the right you find cala major which has a nice beach and lots if restaurants and bars. Overall we can really recommend staying here for a few days of your holiday to experience the harbour and do some water-sports but I would not say that it’s worth spending a whole week there. One things that gets mentioned a lot is the noise, we did not experience this at all, I am a light sleeper but I always take earplugs when going away.

The hotel itself is nice, all quite new and shiny as it were. But it seriously seems like they really don't want guests! The reception is only manned 10am - 4pm (the person on reception was quite friendly / useful). That's where that ends though. The staff at the bar (where breakfast was served) are awful - slow, grumpy and completely ignore you. I quite literally walked up to what looked like the bar manager and stood in front of him asking for some service - he looked blankly and grunted. They spend all their time fiddling with ear pieces. There is a beautiful roof top seating area - but you are NOT allowed to try and sit there before 5pm (what the hell....!!). There is zero service at the pool - you need to trudge to reception (between 10 and 4 remember!) to get a towel, and you are not allowed any drinks at the pool. Way to make it inviting.... I was dubious about the breakfast after reading other reviews, but it was fine. I can see why there is confusion as the menu isn't worded clearly, but as long as staff know that you are allowed something from each line on the menu then its ok (don't expect a smile with that though). Rooms are clean but snug. Bathrooms are tight. We were booked in to a port view but had a sea view (tiny terrace) for first 2 nights (more voyage prive fault than hotels I think). There is a mini bar in the room, but in neither of our rooms was it actually fully stocked. How on earth they track whether anyone uses anything I don't know. The roof top bar is open at night and you will hear chairs and tables being moved about above you from your room. We used a kayak one day - literally no safety information, or talk about routes / what to see / avoid rocks etc. Just 'off you go'. Easy enough to get a taxi from the main road (hotel won't book you one), or a bus into Palma. Quite a few restaurants nearby too (hotel food is very pricey).

Stayed here for 9 days as a family of 4, lured by the promise of hearty breakfast before a day on the water utilising the free water sports and an infinity pool over looking the marina. Let me start with the positive. The staff in the water sports centre and the marina office were truly delightful and helpful. The rest of the experience was left seriously lacking. Our flight was delayed and so we arrived in the early hours of the morning. It took about 30 minutes before a security guard found us walking around desperately looking for some way in and handed us two keys and showed us how to get in to the building, leaving us to find out own rooms. We booked two marina rooms and found we had one (the marina ones have balconies) and one sea view room (which have small Juliette style balconies -you can sit and there are no chairs) Early the next, and every morning we were startled awake by a series of doors opening and closing around us. Basically, I think that when they built this place they must have been decommissioning a prison nearby and they got a job lot on the doors, as every time someone opens or closes the door to their room it makes a loud noise which resonates down the whole hall way. You can also hear people talking and babies crying several rooms away. This is not other resident’s fault, it is just poor choice of materials and bad design. This is also not helped by the cleaners starting work at 8am, opening and closing doors, talking freely in the hall way and banging around in their cupboard which happened to be next our room (room 6 btw). Seriously, no chance of a lie-in or a siesta. The next day, still no one on reception, we found our way to breakfast where a curt, over worked waitress told us we could have a croissant, a pain au chocolate and some coffee and juice. So we ordered, waited for 45 minutes before calling her over to ask where our breakfast was as we were keen to get out on the water, and she had to take our order again and then 15 minutes later basically threw our food at us. This was neither the hearty breakfast we were expecting nor the level of service we were hoping for. Over the next 4 days we got various explanations of what is included in breakfast from different members of staff who shared the same dis-interest and a tinge of disdain for us as residents, before getting a definite answer. Basically it is a croissant (no jam or butter) or a pain au chocolate or a single slice of toast, cut into 4 small pieces with jam or tomato. If you want something from the menu then you can pay anything over the 10 euro limit per person, but you have to pay it there not charge it your room as there are no facilities for that. This is clearly not what we were expecting, hoping for, or consider an acceptable breakfast in any way, especially when you consider it is a sports resort. Probably enough energy to get you through about 30 minutes! The people at the water sports centre couldn’t be lovelier though and we made extensive use of the kayaking. We probably used it more than we had planned as we couldn’t get to the pool as much as we had hoped, more on that later. My only gripe with the water sports was the the SUPs don’t have any leashes which to my mind as an experienced paddle boarder is criminal, so I only kayaked as it is simply isn’t safe to go out on often windy wavy sea without a leash, especially when there are so many beginners around. Deciding to head to the pool to relax, miraculously we found someone on reception to ask for some pool towels and were given 4 bath towels and so we headed down the pool where we found 12 sun beds for the 20 or so rooms, plus the people who use the marina, plus any randomers that decide to turn up on any given day, plus, and this is crucial, the 30 or so kids who attend the summer school in the hotel building who raucously descend on the pool at various points during the day under the ‘supervision’ of two carers who can only be described as looking defeated. Also important to note, and you can’t tell this from the photos that the infinity pool backs onto what is basically a petrol filling station for boats so be prepared for the smell of petrol or diesel to come wafting over your pool experience from time to time. It was also totally hit or miss whether we could get to sit at the pool and even if we could it is no guarantee that we could relax. Really disappointing, hampered by the fact that in the morning whilst we were kayaking the cleaners took the towels we had been given for the pool and didn’t replace them. In fact towels seemed to be a bit of a rarity as on one occasion we were left with only 1 towel in the room in total for the pair of us to share for pool, showers etc. Again, no one on reception to sort this out for us (they leave three signs up advising how to get help for you to choose from, either call a number, go to the restaurant - seldom anybody there, or go to the marina office and leave it to you to work out which one is relevant at which time of day) so we just gave up. In essence, this is basically like a travelodge but on the sea instead of a motorway services. I suspect it was originally designed for boat crews who have been at sea for a while and are in need of a bed and a decent shower and are grateful for anything, however, what the owners have decided to open it up to a travel agent or two (we booked with Voyage Privé), thinking that because they can run a marina that they can run a hotel. Let me be clear, they can’t. The manager, who clearly has no hospitality skills and is leading with his MBA (Management By Absence) came and disturbed us one afternoon to assist him with this admin, as, guess what? He wasn’t going to be on reception the next day when we needed to check out. Didn’t bother to enquire how our stay was, or ask if we needed to leave our bags after check out, he just processed our tourist tax and barely grumbled anything else. My advice, if you are thinking of going here is don’t, unless you love kayaking enough to off-set the above. Seriously disappointed not only as we paid handsomely for a relaxing summer holiday which we didn’t get but because this was our family summer holiday and we can’t get that time back.

Myself and my partner stayed for a week 12th - 18 Aug. We arrived around 7pm and there was nobody at reception. We waited for around 15 mins to see if somebody would turn up but sadly nobody did. I went upstairs as there’s a nice little restaurant on the top floor of the complex and spoke to a lady who worked there. She presented me with keys for our room. Shocking first experience! After locating the room, which was very clean and modern may I state (room 14), and had a lovely view of Calanova Port. Our first night we ate at the restaurant on the ground floor of the complex where the charged us €85 for “Catch of The Day”!! This was sea bass that wasn’t cooked properly, which still had blood on flesh so I had to send most of mine back. We never ate there for the rest of the week. Our package came with bed & breakfast so the next morning we went to the cafe on the top floor of the complex to take in the breakfast experience. We were told we were only aloud toast with butter or jam. Or a croissant with coffee, tea or orange juice. We thought this was shocking... We didn’t eat there for the rest of the week. They do have nice pool on the complex but prepared as groups of 30+ 5 - 7 y/o kids descend on the pool during the day so just forget it..... You won’t be having a relaxing day at the pool. They ran out of room towels while we where there. No managers are ever around. Your basically left to fend for yourself. The rooms are cleaned daily. Forget the TV in your room as nothing in English. And the phone in our room didn’t work so forget that too. Our room was so badly soundproofed, we heard every flip flop up and down the corridor. Every door close. The child crying every day a few rooms down. If you think about having an afternoon siesta..... forget it. Not going to happen! Overall we had a lovely holiday but Palma made up for where this place lacked.