Mallorca is - despite much of the bad press it has received in the years past, one of our favorite places to go for a quick holiday. If you stay away from Arenal - for me a place on the same “desirable” level as Alicante - the island has some truly incredible locations to offer.
Santa Ponça isn’t necessarily one of them - it does have a nice beach, but the surrounding infrastructure is 100% tourism. Its not a bad place to go either, though, especially if you have a rental car.

Our first Mallorca vacation was in a hotel in Santa Ponça, and it was quite a nice one. When we searched for a place to go for an end-of-season week (we’d originally wanted to go to Turkey, but the club that had been recommended by a business partner decided to close Nov. 1 due to lack of business), we came across Club Santa Ponça and thought - hey, we’ve been there before, lets go!

The place has - to be fair - probably the best location in the entire area. It is built on top of the hill at the northern end of the bay and has an incredible view into the bay. The buildings themselves are traditional spanish style, not the horrid bare-concrete structures you find in town.
But really, that is where the plus points end.

I could go on and on about what is wrong with this place, but I’ll keep the list succinct and to the point. We had a chat with some folks that had been to the club five years ago, and apparently back then, there was no all inclusive package available. The two (elderly) folks were completely flabbergasted by the development and its repercussions, and I understand why. It not only pulls in a completely different crowd, but also demotes the entire restaurant crew to pick-up-dirty-plates duty.

Here’s my list of reasons you should NOT book a vacation here, in order of (my) importance:

The food is atrocious. Really. Bland, overcooked, repeat.
The walls between apartments are paper thin - apparently more so than in other mediterranean hotels I have been in. When people next door walk into their room, you think they just walked into yours.
The crowd is, at least partially, one with the “I’ve booked AI and I will use it” mentality. We had an apartment directly across from the “Comedor”, next to the pool area and diagonally across from the bar. We suffered.
I’ve never come across a hotel of this size that will have days without room service (its not uncommon in family-run pensions to not have room service on Sunday), but two days without? Really annoying!
While relatively clean, the place is completely run down. Besides the wall paint, there are no signs of renovation EVER.
Our apartment was 603, with a separate bedroom, sleeping couches in the living / eating area and a huge terrace with an incredible view. The bathroom, however, was incredibly small full of edges to hit various body parts on. I would gladly have given some terrace space to make a bigger bath!
No broom to clean up little messes, no hooks to hang something ANYWHERE!
The kids animation program consisted of Mini Disco (thanks, Geertje!). Finito. No playground, no toys, no Mini Club. The place has an unheated (but covered!) pool, but our daughter only went in it once because it was clearly too cold.
The only available internet access is three pay-per-use terminals at reception. While the rate is ok (1€ for 15 minutes), it is quite inconvenient - there is often a wait because kids are playing internet games.

Oops - so much for a short list. I think you get the picture...
GO SOMEWHERE ELSE FOR VACATION on this beautiful island!

Tags: Mallorca