Palma – MLL Blue Bay Hotel

The MLL Blue Bay hotel in Palma has some pretty poor reviews on-line, but I like an adventure… This was primarily as I was content that the negative reviews were nearly all about factors that I wasn’t bothered about, such as the number of steps to get to it (it’s on a hill), the all inclusive food, the breakfast, the pool and so on. The room was also the cheapest on hotels.com, and I was pleased that hotels.com price matched an offer I saw on booking.com, although I suspect that the hotel wasn’t as I understand they have to foot the bill for that.

The welcome was polite and friendly, although entirely lacking in any real useful information about the hotel. I tend to gloss over that as any decent hotel has this detail in some form of room information folder in the room. It transpired that the hotel hadn’t bothered to do that, so I never did find out if they had a restaurant, offered breakfast or had any other interesting facilities. I slightly got the impression, indeed I strongly got the impression, that the hotel was trying to hide its food offerings and it only really had the options available to offer all-inclusive or half-board board options to tour groups.

The room was sufficiently clean not to cause me any concern, with the towels and sheets all being clean and free from stains. The housekeeping every day was efficient, although the restocking of toiletries and towels differed from day to day. The staff were always friendly as well, although some were more cheery at the front desk than others. I never watch the television when I’m away, but I was handed a remote control at reception when checking in and politely asked to bring it back when I checked out. It’s not the most positive of impressions, suggesting that lots of stuff gets nicked, but I accepted it rather than explain at check-out that I had rejected the offer at check-in.

The room didn’t have a kettle, which isn’t really unusual, but I’m surprised that they don’t offer coffee or tea given the number of guests who would probably like to have those facilities. Equally, and back to the lack of information in the room, I had no idea whether the bar was operating when I visited in November or how much the drinks would have been. It transpired it was open, but the hotel lost my trade (which wouldn’t have exactly been substantial since I doubt they offered the beer options I’d have wanted) since I don’t think that these things should really be a mystery that have to be worked out by guests.

The room did though have a safe, although it wasn’t operational. I don’t have anything in my bag that’s worth nicking, but it’s a shame they couldn’t have got the safe repaired for those guests who carry rather more luxuries than I do. More irritatingly, the room only has one plug socket, which isn’t exactly ideal. On the bright side though, the wi-fi connection was marvellous.

The luxury bathroom in the room.

The balcony area, which is probably best in summer as the cold winds meant that it was never really viable to sit outside.

And a rainbow in the sky following a rain storm. The view was unfortunately not very exciting, it was a shame that there was no view of the sea, but then again, I had booked into the cheapest accommodation that the hotel had.

I don’t think entertainment was an option when I was staying off-season, although, to be fair, I didn’t know a great deal of what was going on in the hotel as I think the management like it to be a mystery. But, judging from this review on TripAdvisor, I didn’t miss out:

“The ‘entertainment’ was a not good. On the first night, I had the unfortunate experience of watching two women dance on the stage and bang wooden sticks together to music. The second evening involved ‘Bingo’, which cost more money to enter than the value of the prize – a bottle of Rose.”

Another happy guest reported:

“We got to the room and struggled to drop the bags off because they hardly fit in the ‘room’! We actually thought that we had been given the key to a broom cupboard by mistake, but alas no….this was our room! In fairness the room was very clean and tidy but given the size of it it would be almost impossible to make it untidy!! before heading down to the pool we decided to spend 5 mins on the balcony….we had to do this in 2.5 minutes shifts as the balcony was so small we had to take it in turns to sit out!!”

All in all, it’s a better hotel than the reviews suggest and it’d be hard for me to complain (well, any more than normal) given the price point of a little over £25 per night. I walked in and back to Palma every day, which is around an hour each way, but there’s a regular bus service that costs €1.50 that plies the main street (cash only).