Condesa de la Bahia Review

Overall Rating

Close to beach, 3* hotel as you would expect from this star hotel not to good not to bad.

Food, Cost, Hotel furnishings.

This was the second time my family stayed at the Condesa de la Bahia. We wanted to return to the hotel mainly because of its location to the beach, the kids club and the local bars and restaurants.

With respect to each of the above we weren't let down, our balcony view was fantastic, we were directly above the poolside restaurant on the 3rd floor, and so had a great view of my son playing by the children's pool and a great view of the beach.

We were unable to view the night time entertainment as a tree blocked our line of site to the tabled area (which wasn't any loss as every night I thought we were part of the Eurovision song contest) the entertainment wasn't what I had remembered back 5 years ago, there seemed to be more of a British bias then and that meant a better entertainment package. In 2004 the hotel entertainers (from Sweden) all had to address the nationalities in there own language which is why I likened the night to Eurovision. They were however very friendly and tried their best.

The room was as expected small and cramped but we knew this before booking. The maid service was first class and even cleaned up after our 7 year old which wasn't expected but made us very grateful. You'll need to take many coat hangers with you as we had a total of 6 and as you're expected to wear trousers to dinner your likely to need them.

The TV was a joke. In this day and age of 500 channels plus all we had were CNN and BBC News. No kids channel and no other entertainment channel although the majority of the guests were British (we are from Wales) the stations were all German and Spanish (why Spanish I don't know) at least with the kids channels available if you wanted to go back to your room for a sleep the children could keep themselves occupied

If like us you have a plug in mosquito killer plus a radio you'll find it hard to reach a power point so if possible get yourself a cheap extension lead from Ikea before you depart the UK. Bathroom was OK although the shower in the bath was old and broken.

Bar service was as you would expect from the Spanish, they seem to forget that tourism is their bread and butter so a friendly smile and polite service is what's expected but rarely given (the language barrier isn't the problem just look at the Greeks, Portuguese, Turkish very friendly people)

The worst part of our holiday was the restaurant. We encountered many a guest unhappy with the menu

Breakfast was the best for me although you only got a good breakfast every other day as the (you can only take hot dog sausage for so long) eggs were scrambled one day and horrible or fried the next and excellent, I spent most of the time with honey on toast.

And forget the cereals, when you pay thousands of pounds for a holiday you don't expect to get the cheapest breakfast cereals on the planet (with warm milk) my son (who's not a good eater anyway) wouldn't eat anything other than marmite toast and we supplied the marmite.

Evening meal I have mixed emotions regarding the evening, ALL of the food was cooked very well, again its just the selection, if your like our family the last thing you want to happen is have a stomach bug while away so because of that thinking we were unable to sample most of the rice, fish, paella type meals available every night which left very little else, The cooked meats didn't look that appetizing either and there is only so many under cooked chips you can force down. Again the children's choice was VERY poor THOMSON should know children's eating habits by now and should have addressed this issue as it was a problem 5 years ago as is today. Suffice to say we ate out most days, what I cannot understand is how small local bars and restaurants can serve great food at a great price but the MAR group of hotels finds this a real problem. And it wasn't just the British eating out most nationalities were unhappy.

The kids club My son gave the club 5 out of ten, he isn't one to want to site and draw in an air-conditioned room for two hours so maybe this wasn't for him. He did enjoy the company of other children and found the Thomson reps really friendly. He did bring back pirate hats and loads of drawings so he must have had some fun, although the 3 video games machines in the hotel lobby area was a bigger pull and drain on our resources, and if you want to keep in touch via email you can make use of the computers in the lobby for a few euros

Over all the holiday was great, the reason it was great was because we new what to expect, we wanted a room overlooking the beach and pool and we got it, we wanted a good base so we could tour Majorca by car and we got it the beach was FANTASTIC as expected and my son and I spent many hours playing on the best beach around. The Thomson reps in the hotel were the best we have come across they put on the best welcome party we have seen and deserve more support from the hotel Mar group. The reps commented that the Spanish tourist board has really got to pick its socks up if it wants to keep us all going back year in year out, there are many holiday destinations offering better service than Majorca these days and at a cheaper price. Majorca hasn't changed the way it does things for many years and even loyal visitors like us will not return until the island learns a few tricks from its competitors


Regards

The Waite Family

South Wales

UK

Members' Comments onleft hungry's Review

• nuttytart2k86 on 19th Jul 2004

  I have also just returned from this hotel on the 15th of July. I thought the food was lovely and the Spanish waiters were great too. The only dinner that I was unhappy with was the Majorcan theme night. The entertainment team were great and always tried their hardest!