Meliá South Beach — Hotel in Calvià

Start off with the negative start. And then stay for the positives! ||As a Meliá member, you are offered an upgrade for your birthday . This is stated in the t’s and c’s. Upon availability. ||I’d have numerous emails stating as long as there availability on check in , they would upgrade the room (around 65 euros per night for a bigger room with sea view) we would have been happy to pay but as an increase this means 325 euros (5 night stay) to spend on other things. Like beer , wine and crisp. ||On arrival , (fairly late) the receptionist , advised she doesn’t have to authorisation to do the complimentary upgrade , despite her colleague in the email . Stating that this was all okays and promised in multiple emails. (And an email from Meliá directly) We had a very tired baby and lots of luggage and had not eat yet . So she said go to your room and when the managers back they’ll have to authorise you changing room . ||Meaning we would have to unpack and then pack again wasting some of our days , but so on . The receptionist tbh , was really rude and short . (Like many many 1* reviews on trip advisor state) I just got to live it for myself . After hoping it was people being pedantic etc. ||This is where my extreme concern and being massively let down comes .||We have a 3 month old baby , and was promised even the ‘standard’ rooms were okay for babies . But despite this being in writing . This ‘play pen’ as opposed to an actual cot. Literally you couldn’t make it up . Didn’t even fit in the room properly, there’s clear no safe sleeping . In Spain? It wouldn’t fit beside the bed , and there was no walk room . You’d have to throw the baby somehow to the end of the play pen. ||Alex the receptionist response when I came back downstairs , and said ‘what do you expect when you’ve only booked a standard room’. In which I replied . Your hotel states it’s child friendly and the emails back and forward were reassuring that it would be author for a 3 month old baby. ||We spent an hour or so arguing that that room is not fit for purpose . And we need to be moved to something bigger so we can fit a cot in there . Magically after much deliberation we was moved . To a beautiful room . Big enough to fit a cot for a baby . A room left over . But it took some absolute doing to get us moved . Other hotel guest whom were behind me listening stated it was awful service ||This has caused so much stress, as we were tired hungry . I put my wallet with the passports under my pillow , so I could go and grab some food for us to eat. I forgot I put it there and it fell down the back of the bed . By the morning we couldn’t remember what we had done with it , I spent an entire day looking for it in both rooms , nearly having to speak to the police because it had the passports in! Checking both rooms thinking a cleaner from the previous room had picked it up . So yeah 2 ruined days . ||One last negative , young boy who’s a life guard, just sits on his phone the entire day . The kids pool is actual very deep . To stand feet in the deep end you’d have to be 6ft probably . A quick glance . But not as much as that . Also , one other young receptionist, wasn’t friendly at all . But the man who wore glasses (male Alex) and other man who I think helps with bags . Was extremely friendly and professional . Much like some amazing people we met out in W Dubai the Palm last year . The other reception staff need to learn from these two . ||Last negative is music is extremely loud from the entertainment until 10.45pm . Meaning that there was no early night , and with a baby, she wanted sometimes and we wanted to try and sleep a bit earlier than that . But it was what it was . ||Now for the positives . ||The hotel is beautiful . Been in countless 5* hotel , around the world . Caribbean , Dubai and so on. This looks like a 5* and the sister hotel and Nikki beach club which share the same grounds . We’ve been the Ibiza 5 times . But first time to Majorca . The pools are beautiful, the room we was moved into was . All of it was top top notch . Very clean . ||The food at breakfast was lovely . So varied and felt generous. 10/10 . ||Nikki beach club , which is attached to the hotel and shares the music. Is fantastic, very chilled beach club music and stops playing music around 6pm. We visited twice on our stay . There’s also a beautiful little bar just a 30 second walk to the right on the beach front! ||We had dinner at the restaurant sort of looking over the sea and had paella which I thought was really nice.||The hotel has a kids club where they show movies around 8pm and give little bags of popcorn etc . There’s an indoor pool but the water is cold . ||Taxi from the airport is around 50 euros each way . And takes about 30 mins flat . If your just a couple or land at a reasonable time they bus takes about 45/1 hour and cost about 5 euros each way. ||We got the bus into palma to visit ‘cappuccino’, in which we’d been to in Ibiza many times . Pure luxury! Palma took about 35/40 mins on the bus , however there was only probably 200 people trying to get the bus back and only 50 seats or so!! They tend to let elderly and children on first .||The hotel is across the road from many supermarkets , to buy water , snacks etc. and loads of really nice restaurants . The hotel sort of borders two areas , not quite magaluf and not quite the other town . I wouldn’t go half board because there are so many places to eat. But predominately Italian food! ||As a family , we wouldn’t stay at this hotel again anytime soon , due to the sleeping situation. Even though it’s a beautiful hotel in a beautiful location. I think I would stay in the Calviá beach . As they seem to cater and care more for families . The reviews are much better for the sister hotel which reflect in the service we received to be fair.||If you’ve read this entire review , and you’re already booked . You will really enjoy this hotel . If you’ve read don’t have a very young baby. Maybe try and bring a travel cot? The rituals shower gel and shampoo conditioners emphasise the luxury of...

It's easy to have a bad experience and quickly drop a 1 star review with a petty complaint. Most people won't read those and to be truthful, I wanted to give this place 3 stars for being just alright overall. However, I experienced something so insane that I have to tell you why this is a genuine 2 star experience.

Before I mention why you should reconsider, let me just give you the straight facts about my 4 night stay:

You're probably considering this hotel because it's on the beach. Get ready for fees. After driving to the hotel, my group was greeted with a 30 euro/day parking charge. Excellent. We didn't have a choice, so we paid and dropped our bags in the room and went down to the water. The hotel has lounge chairs (as literally every beachfront does) and we were stopped to pay 80 euro for the day just to use them. On their property. The property we are paying guests of. Okay... Well are the rooms any good?

Meh. We each got a sea view room that had a nice enough window. Storage was minimal, and the fridge is too small to be useful. Air conditioning just BARELY made the room cool enough to be a pass. Strangely, the bathroom is in glass walls with a door that doesn't actually secure or lock, so you will be seeing and hearing your partner do business every time.

How about the surrounding area? It's nice enough. Water has varying amounts of trash floating around, plenty of restaurants and shops to choose from. Overall it's crowded and touristy, but you should expect that. After exploring the whole island, I recommend something near town of Sóller to actually get some culture with your holiday.

Ok so things aren't perfect, but what about this business forced me to tell the world why you should NOT reserve your vacation there?

Circle by Meliá.

They randomly select guests to participate in a 45 minute chat about their membership in exchange for a 100 euro voucher. I decided sure, maybe I'll trade some time to... you know. Use the beach chairs that should be included when you swipe your card for 1000+ euro in the first place. Lol.

So they sent in a nice young man from their marketing team to tell you how you can save money on bookings at their worldwide hotels. He kept citing a base figure of 20% off, illustrating that a 10,000 booking does indeed cost 8,000 in case you didn't understand the first seven times he explained it. The real kicker is that they casually pitch a contract at you which cost more than 25,000 euro spanning 5 years, which apparently also includes hundreds per month in fees.

At this point I'm wondering what kind of crack they're smoking, pitching 20% off deals at the up-front price of a new car. The younger guy could tell I was unlikely to sign any of these absurd agreements, so he brought in a senior member of the marketing team. I wasted another half hour of this other person drawing a line with 5 dashes to indicate 5 years of membership, followed by him typing on a calculator to tell me what 20% off a given number is.

I have a business degree from an American university. I know what's happening here, the only difference is that apparently Spanish universities don't teach ethics. About half an hour beyond the "45 minute" meeting cutoff, we negotiated this contract to just over 17,500. I had plans, so it was time for me to reject the "deal" and go on about my day.

I then put my sunglasses on, shook hands with the men and drove to other parts of the island that were actually enjoyable. After this meeting, I spent some time researching "what is this Circle membership really?" and the answer is... a horrible contract people are desperate to get out of.

They were happy to tell me what other hotels are in their network so we can all avoid them: Gran Melia, ME by Melia and other similar names, as well as Paradisus, Innside, TRYP, and SOL. I'll pass on all of those now.

Final note: service was very slow because the staff are overwhelmed by tourists which is understandable. Many employees were very friendly and we enjoyed casual chats. I hope those good people find a better...

Overall, this is very good hotel. I would stay there again. But I was very disappointed with registration / check-in procedure (refer to below).

Positive points:

1. New
2. Clean
3. Nice view (only for front sea view rooms)
4. good food for breakfast and dinner with variety of options
5. interesting hotel activities (like yoga, cocktail master class, etc.)
6. Beach is clean and very close (literally around 30-50 meters)
7. A lot of lunch options and bars nearby
8. Very nice staff in restaurants

Negative points:

1. gym and spa are supplied in different hotel. even though they have their own gym
2. dinner is supplied in the different hotel
3. long and poor cleaning service in the hotel: rooms were not cleaned until 3 pm, we always needed to ask for tooth paste, water, etc. additionally because they never leave them unless you ask. I think after a couple of days it is obvious that we need that.
4. I booked half-board option and was surprised that drinks are not included for the dinner. Maybe I missed it in terms and conditions. But this is the first time when I see that you need to pay additionally for drinks for half-board option.
5. there is a very loud bar nearby which works at least until 2 am with very loud music. For me it was not critical, but for elder people or people with kids it could be a problem.
6. Be very careful with booking type of rooms. side sea view and mountain view rooms have way worse view than they show on web-site. at least from the room which I saw.

Very disappointing check-in situation:

1. Registration took 2 hours because receptionist Javi made a mistake in the system and had to re-do. It is fine, such things happen, but someone could at least say "sorry". We elderly people there. Eventually, it took 3.5 hours to get to the rooms
2. I have booked "side sea view" rooms. But they do not look like as on photos on official web-site. According to Cristina (hotel manager), rooms which they have provided to us on the first floor with view on tubes from their restaurant are the side-sea view room. I would not recommend to book them. Note that mountain view rooms are not are actually view to the buildings with some mountain part. Unfortunately, I did not save photos of rooms.
3. When I started explaining them these are not the rooms which we booked, they started claiming that it is my fault and that they can not change rooms because they do not have any rooms available.
4. I wanted to talk to Cristina when she left to the office, but other receptionist Alehandro (the one who wears glasses) started shouting at me. His exact words "get out of here".
5. There was one guys who started screaming at me. I was shocked. I do not remember his name, but they referred to him as a hotel manager. Without knowing situation, he started shouting at me and I felt that he was about to hit me. Thanks to other employees who hold him. I am shocked with the behavior of "Hotel Manager".
6. Unfortunately, I do not recall the name of another lady who was very professional and helped to resolve all the issues in civil manner. She is the boss of Cristina as I understand. She was very polite, straight to the point and actually ready to help. I am surprised that her boss is unprofessional (in my opinion).
7. Thanks to another lady (Marta) who helped us next day to change the rooms.

I would have given this hotel 4 review stars or even 5, but this situation was so disappointing, that I can not give more than 2. I hope hotel management (not the guy screamed at me) will read this feedback and take relevant actions, especially for Alehandro and that "hotel manager" guy. Hotel management is welcome to reach out to me in case of...