Iberostar Selection Jardín del Sol Suites — Hotel in Calvià

If you have never been to 3, 4 or 5 star resort in the US, Mexico, Thailand, Dubai, or Japan this is probably a great 4 star resort.

“All inclusive” is meant to make it easy on you. Get whatever you want, it is included! But at Iberostar, what you ask for probably isn’t included. And you have to ask to find out if it is included.

Location: 30 minutes from Palma. Near nothing at all. If you are on a honeymoon and never leave, it’s great.

Parking: they don’t have any, but there is one spot on the street where you can unload your stuff. You then have to street park your own car. We got lucky and parked about half a mile away.

The rooms: reminiscent of the 80s, but very clean. They come with a free water jug, which you can fill outside. Even if you spend extra for the “star prestige”, you have to bring your own water bottle. And you have to fill your own jug in the hall.

Three disconnected pools which look like they were built by different hotels in different decades. nice for a 2 star resort. Acceptable for 3.

The pool deck: *there are three pools, and seemingly enough lounge chairs for maybe 4/5 of the guests. On the first day our group of 5, staying in 2 rooms, could only find one open spot with 2 in-pool “floating” lounge chairs, 1 of which was broken. I have never been to a 4 resort where you can’t get towels without asking a bartender to get a key to unlock a cabinet full of towels. Both days we had to do this. *get to the pool early! At 9:30am every pool chair was taken, and maybe 5% of them were occupied. By 11:15, maybe 20% were occupied. *we found an open cabana behind some other chairs, but there was no table to put drinks or food. We took a table from an unused dining area.

The restaurants: the salad bar was good, but the main food is very lackluster. The main protein was langostuine, which was over cooked and not shelled.

The staff: on the first day they pleaded with us to fill out the survey. At dinner they brought all 5 of us tablets. With the longest survey ever. 5 started. Only 1 was willing to put in the effort to finish. The other 4 of us weren’t willing to put in the effort to spend 10ish minutes to finish the survey to give feedback. I think they do this hoping guests get tired filling out this survey, so they never bother to write feedback where it is publically visible.

The bar: if you didn’t pay for all inclusive you probably wouldn’t complain. If you did, you’d be immediately unhappy. Almost nothing is included. Want a Margarita? $8. Simple things like even Jack Daniel’s are a $3.70 up charge. Considering the actual cost of jack is under $1 per shot, this is unreasonable when you have already paid for all inclusive. Nothing is blended.

The Spa: the website has no appointments for the next several months, so we tried to book the day we arrived. The employee told us to come back the next morning when the manager was there, because they didn’t have enough open spots for all of us. When we arrived in the morning the same employee was making reservations for another group, and our group couldn’t all get reservations. I imagine some of the spots she gave to the people in front of us in the morning could have been ours, but the employee gave them to somebody else. Why? *rather than book appointments they asked us to come back at 10am. At 10am they asked for a phone number so the spa manager could call when they arrived. To nobody’s surprise, they never called. *in the morning the sauna and steam room were either off and the employee didn’t know how to turn them on, or broken. Either way they had to call a “tech” to figure it out.

The facilities: in okay shape, but we saw multiple broken pool loungers, and there was this broken bathroom door at the main restaurant (pictured).

For the same price you can spend time at the most incredible resorts in Thailand (Conrad Ko Samui), Hawaii (sensei on lanai, anywhere in Waikiki), Cabo (One&only Palmilla), Dubai (Waldorf jumeriah). Or many other 3 star+ resorts.

Because this Iberostar is not 3, 4, or 5 star by...

We have stayed at this hotel 7 times now and have never left a negative review, however after our most recent visit we will not be returning.

A couple of days into our stay, whilst looking for a table for lunch, we noticed a pigeon wandering around inside the restaurant. We thought it might just be a one-off (even though this happened last year too), so decided to just skip lunch that day - obviously, pigeons are very unhygienic, unclean and unsightly, so we would not want to eat lunch with a pigeon walking underneath our table. Unfortunately, we noticed that the restaurant staff were just walking past the pigeon and not doing anything to remove it. We raised this issue with hotel management who assured us that the doors to the outside terrace will be kept closed going forward.

Two days later, whilst eating breakfast, the same thing happened again. This time, the pigeon was in the actual buffet area - flapping around by the open food. This is obviously a huge health and safety concern. Pigeons carry an array of dangerous pathogens which can cause severe illness in humans, so for them to be allowed near the open food is completely unacceptable, not to mention that they are also unsightly and not nice to look at when you’re trying to eat. If people don’t mind being surrounded by pigeons, and prefer to eat outside in the fresh air with the view of the bay, then this option is available - so we do not understand why the hotel do not make an effort to ensure that the doors to the outside terrace are closed and that the inside area is not compromised. After noticing the pigeon by the food for the second time, we left the restaurant and did not return to the restaurant for the remainder of our stay - we eat every subsequent meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner) either out in Santa Ponsa or ordered a takeaway to eat on our terrace. This was obviously very expensive and was not covered by the small refund provided by the hotel and Jet2, so was an extra cost to us.

I notice that on every previous review that has also highlighted the pigeon hazard, the hotel reply with a generic statement saying they have ‘stringent health and safety protocols’ - but there clearly aren’t working. What are these protocols? Because all we witnessed were staff ignoring the pigeon, and nothing being done to address the issue (we can say this with certainty because it happened twice during our stay, with one of the incidents being after we had already complained).

We understand that pigeons are a problem on the island as a whole, and laws prohibit the hotel from causing harm, but we genuinely don’t understand why the hotel can’t shut the doors and make sure pigeons can’t get inside by the food?

The hotel offered us the opportunity to eat in the seperate dining area which is usually reserved for penthouse guests, however this does not address the issue that the pigeon(s) were by the open food and plates - so it doesn’t matter where you eat the food, the food and plates are already contaminated.

We were looking forward to our two-week trip here as we had already visited multiple times before and this time we upgraded to a terrace room, but this experience tainted our whole holiday and we will not be returning due to the blatant disregard for the health and safety of the hotel guests.

Despite this, we would still like to say that Monste in the restaurant is such as asset to the hotel - she is so welcoming and friendly and makes sure that diners are all happy and looked after (I would like to clarify that the multiple pigeon incidents did not happen when she was in the restaurant). Monste is such a polite member of staff and we always look forward to returning so we can catch up with her, so we are going to miss her! Same goes for Ricardo, Katerina, Tiago and Mario - they are an amazing group of staff and we could not ask for better service from them. The hotel should value these staff members because they bring a lot to the brand and really elevate the visitors...

Star Prestige guests have a separate checkin desk in a different building from main reception area. There was no one to greet us or inform us of where we should go. We queued for 20 minutes before taking our turn only to be informed we should have been taken to the Star Prestige checkin. We were then escorted to a lift, then to a corridor connecting the main building to the Prestige building and eventually the checkin desk. A total shambles and unacceptable way to be treated after a tiring journey.||We had booked a penthouse suite to allow us privacy and quietness. Unfortunately the penthouse area, which is nice, is in full sun for most of the day. Neither my wife nor I can take prolonged exposure to the sun and requested a parasol. We were told that health and safety did not permit this. So the penthouse area, which can only be accessed by a steep spiral staircase rising from the bedroom, was useless for us. The hotel did show us two alternative rooms but these didn’t provide the same level of privacy we had booked. So we lay on our bed and gazed at the wonderful view outside thinking of how reality and dream didn’t match.||The shower room is cramped and the shower door difficult to close to ensure the floor is not flooded. Also the water temperature varies from cold to scalding hot to cold again.||One restaurant which is buffet service serves the whole hotel. The quality and choice is high. There is a small separate Japanese room which seems very popular and needs to be reserved. We didn’t sample this. Some limited snack provision is also available in the Prestige bar area.||Penthouse guests have access to a small private dining area. Unfortunately the outside terrace of this room has only space for three small tables which are permanently in full sun with no shade. We rarely saw anyone use these outside tables during our stay. We did not book all inclusive so only used the area for breakfast. After a few days we preferred to eat breakfast outside in the general dining area where shaded tables were available (most guests avoided eating at the unshaded tables).||The hotel does not have car parking facilities. We were told we had to find parking on the street. Unfortunately parking facilities are at a premium and finding a free space involved patience and often a long walk. Parking in general in the resort area was nearly impossible and we returned our hire car early.||It has to be noted that hotel staff were warm friendly and welcoming. Special thanks to Helena who showed us a couple of room alternatives.||In general communication concerning details of hotel facilities, activities and events is minimal. We requested information concerning local restaurants. A staff member kindly supplied us with a number of recommendations which was appreciated but the hotel doesn’t seem to have a policy of active engagement with guests.||In summary, the hotel is advertised as four star and our experience suggests that this category is just about attained.|However, the hotel’s marketing especially with regard to Star Prestige, is an oversell of promise...