HM Alma Beach - Adults Only — Hotel in Palma

This is the fourth Spanish four star I have stayed in since I became severely disabled. It is the only one I'll be going back to. This hotel is extremely good if you are in a manual wheelchair, have difficulty walking big distances or or are on sticks. This review is written entirely from a disabled person's perspective - there are plenty of other reviews dealing with all the other aspects of the hotel.||APPROACH|There is no dropped kerb directly outside the hotel. Happily my (female) taxi driver saw this and pushed my wheelchair up the kerb. There are dropped kerbs at either end of the street and a semi one about 15 yards past the hotel entrance (heading to the sea) which I could go down by myself - I wasn't brave enough to try to go up it on my own as it wasn't a proper dropped kerb. ||RAMP|There is a "hind leg" shaped ramp into the hotel. The first few metres of it are uncomfortably steep then the gradient becomes easier to manage on your own. The ramp has a good handrail on both sides. ||HOTEL INTERIOR|After the ramp up the front door, everywhere in the hotel - access to the bar/ restaurant/ ground floor pool and reception is entirely flat. There is a self propelled lift to assist disabled people to get into and out of the pool. After reception, it is flat into the lift and then flat to all the disabled rooms. There are a few sunbeds up a fairly easy ramp on the roof of the block containing all the disabled room. If you use the other lift, there are 8 floors in this block. On that roof, there is access to many more sunbeds although the rooftop pool itself is not accessible. The sky bar is accessible although it is down a long "tunnel" of sunbeds.||ROOM|A strong spring on the door hinge makes entering or leaving the room tricky. Not insurmountable. Quite small for a disabled room but there is a turning circle at the end of the bed. Anyone in a wheelchair will be unable to use the wardrobe as it is too high - I didn't have a lot with me so this wasn't a problem. The bed is a good height (it was perfect for me to slide across from my wheelchair). However I can only haul my legs into bed if I get in the RHS of a bed as you face it. The space down this side of the bed was only a few feet wide. I got completely fed up catching my elbow/ the tyre or the wheel spokes in the blackout curtain which is alongside this side of the bed. Next time, I will ask the hotel to move the (2 single pushed together) beds to make this space slightly wider. (They can't be moved much as this would encroach on your ability to open the corridor door and get through it!) I don't think an electric wheelchair could be used down the RHS side of the bed and I also don't think 2 people who were both in wheelchairs could manage in this room. ||BATHROOM|Overall excellent and a good size. |Loo - the toilet is raised - which is essential for me - and it has a fixed grab rail on the left (as you face the loo) and a drop down one on the RHS. Unfortunately this was broken (I was in room 214) and would not stay in the "up" position. This was very awkward as I transferred sideways backwards and forwards on and off the loo from my wheelchair. I did report it and a maintenance chap came and said he'd fixed it - it was no different. I suspect something had been lost in the translation. ||Basin - once I moved a low table (containing spare towels and the hairdryer), the height and design of the wash hand basin allowed me to get my legs completely underneath it - very handy when I was cleaning my teeth or whatever. ||Shower - the shower was a proper roll in one - completely flat and easy to use. It had a short glass screen and then a glass door which was easy to open. It also had a flip down shower stool. Unfortunately this was too low for me to safely use but it was sturdy and slatted and I found I could lean forward holding onto it from my w/chair and wash my hair and lower legs and arms in the shower with the shower jet in my other hand. The power shower was easy to control and the shower head itself was very directional which was very helpful. ||BALCONY|Completely flat out onto it which was great. However, a major disappointment to me was that all the disabled rooms in the hotel are on the side that not only does not have any kind of sea view but also gets no sun at all at any point during the day. ||RESTAURANT|Extremely well run but probably an inadequate size for the number of rooms in the hotel. I was only bed and breakfast and never tried dinner in the hotel restaurant. At breakfast-time, most of the items were easy accessible to someone in a wheelchair but there was a bottleneck in the middle of the restaurant where the breads, juice and both coffee machine are located. The staff were extremely fast at keeping all supplies topped up but queues often built up here and I really felt in people's way in a wheelchair. There is also a supporting pillar right in front of the fresh fruit so they were a little awkward to get at. I could just about turn around the bread "island" - I don't think anyone in an electric w/chair could. In addition, most of the tables in the main indoor part of the restaurant did not have sufficient room around them to make them easily accessible to someone in a wheelchair - people had to squash their chairs in to let me past. Because of this, I always went down to breakfast late so that the rush would be easing and I had a better chance of getting one of the tables on the left as you enter the dining room. As soon as they saw me coming, a member of staff would instantly whisk a chair away from one of these tables (if available) and offer it to me. This is the best place to sit if you are in a w/chair. I think I tried 3 different tables in the dining room during my stay. I could easily get my knees under all three - although my w/chair frame and the table supports meant the tables on the left as you came in were the easiest for me to get a comfortable distance from my meal. (With the other two I was a little far away).||RECEPTION|No low level counter but it was never a problem - as soon as I arrived at reception, a receptionist always instantly saw me, stopped what they were doing and attended to me.||LOCATION |Perfect - a 2 minute push one way to the square on the main street in the heart of C'an Pastilla or a one minute push the other to the promenade, beach and sea along with buckets of bars, restaurants, boat hire places etc. If you go from the hotel to the main street and you want to go right when you get there, I urge you to cross the road and go down the far side of the street, this is because the dropped kerbs on the RHS of the street as you go down towards the sea are VERY uneven and tricky - I could not do a few of them on my own - I needed a passing kind pedestrian (or motorist!) to help. |RESORT|C'an Pastilla is a relaxed quiet resort with no nightclubs and most of the bars and restaurants have closed by midnight. Some of these are up steps but many more have a flat or ramped entrance from the pavement. With dropped kerbs in the resort, it is either a feast or a famine. Going along the part of the promenade which skirts the main town, the paving changes but the whole way is a permanent dropped kerb from one side of the road to the other. But beyond that, once you have passed the dropped kerb near where the tourist train sets off, there is no dropped kerb to get off the promenade for I would estimate at least half a mile! In fact, the whole way along the Arenal promenade, dropped kerbs are few and far between. In addition a lot of the promenade along the sea front has a drainage camber which looks flat but is actually unnecessarily steep. This means you have to use one arm much more than the other - which is...

My best friend and I booked a 3 night stay at the hotel, choosing a double room with balcony. A few days before we travelled we received an email from the hotel offering an upgrade to a premium double room for an additional 29.84 euros per night. The email specified the additional features and facilities we would enjoy for the extra cost, and we agreed to the upgrade.

My friend's flight arrived earlier than mine so she went straight to the hotel. Upon arrival she was told the room wouldn't be ready until later in the day, which wasn't a problem as it was before the official check-in time. She was told she must pay the full amount for the stay, even though I had not yet arrived.

When I arrived a couple of hours later, the room still wasn't ready. We were told we could leave our bags in a side room but no-one offered to help or give us a tag for our baggage. I was asked for my passport by the male reception agent and he spent some time inputting the details, then handed it back to me and continued to tap away on the keyboard. Several minutes later he asked what I was waiting for - I assumed as he had not thanked for or told me he had concluded the input, he was still checking me in but no, he was just very rude!

When we returned later to check in we were given our keys but no one offered information about how to find the room or offered to help with our bags - you would expect more from a hotel of this standard.

We emerged from the lift to a very dated corridor which felt more 2 star than 4 star. Upon entering our room we were crestfallen to see how small the bedroom and bathroom were, with absolutely no privacy between the two areas.

The balcony was tiny, barely the width of a person! Although there was a side sea view, the general vista was depressing, overlooking run down properties.

The additional amenities supposedly in a premier double room were missing - pillow menu, bathrobe and slippers, docking station, coffee machine - none of these were present.

We weighed up all these factors and decided to seek accommodation elsewhere. According to the terms of the booking, we knew we would have to forfeit the first nights' accommodation costs but would be refunded the second and third night.

We returned to reception, where another couple were also dealing with a check in problem which required a lengthy call to management. It was a Sunday and apparently no managers are available on site!

We were told that only the taxes could be refunded but the room refund for the other two nights would be made the next day, when the manager was in. We asked for assurances that this would happen but were told to ring to remind them!!

We also stated we wanted a refund for the additional 29.84 as although we were willing to pay for the first night, we did not feel we should pay for a premier room when our room lacked all the features promised for the supposed upgrade.

The next day the cost of nights two and three were refunded but not the additional 29.84 for the first night. The hotel then refused to reply to any further communication, as have their head office.

In my decades of travelling across the globe, this was one of the worst examples of hotel customer service I have experienced. It is not the money itself which irks me but the principle.

This hotel does NOT warrant a 4 star rating, in terms of its decor, facilities or staff. A complete disappointment and I will not be returning to any HM...

This review is written primarily from a wheelchair user's perspective as there are plenty of reviews which encompass all other aspects of the hotel. I've stayed a number of times in C'an Pastilla but this is the only hotel I've stayed in more than once and so that probably tells you all you need to know. ||In chronogical order, what a wheelchair user can expect......the hotel has no dropped kerb so in order to access it from the road, you have to go either to the beach end of the street or go up to the sleeping policeman at the other end - both just a short distance. There is then a ramp (in a "dog leg" shape) to avoid the few steps into the hotel which, as a manual wheelchair user with good upper body strength, I find no problem. Once inside the hotel, no ramps are required except at one of the pool areas I think (I didn't go up there this time). It is entirely flat (through wonderful automatic doors) into reception, then flat to an elevator up to your room and flat along the corridor into your room. The rooms are all flat - it is even flat with hardly any ridge at all - out onto the balcony (if you have one). All the adapted/ disabled rooms have balconies and all overlook the ground floor pool. Unfortunately, I don't think any of these balconies ever get the sun - although I've never stayed in the middle of the Summer so then might be different.....||ROOM|The rooms are quite compact for disabled rooms but, with a little re-arrangement of easily moved furniture, you can create a good turning space at the bottom of the bed and the bathroom has a reasonable turning circle too. There is a good width at the LHS side of the bed in the disabled rooms and there is sufficient space at the RHS for a manual wheelchair. I think an electric chair user would have difficulty on the right. And there is certainly no room under the bed for a hoist. The bed height made transfers easy. ||In the bathroom, the loo ws a decent height but I was put in the same room as last year and the fold down grab rail beside the toilet (which I reported as broken last year), is still faulty - it won't stay up to allow an easy sideways transfer from the loo back into your w/chair. Have reported it again so it will be interesting to see if it gets fixed. Plenty of room under the wash hand basin for your legs if you are in a wheelchair and the shower is a proper roll in one with a flip down seat. Unfortunately this is way too low for me to use. This time, I hired a manual shower chair with big wheels from a local supplier..... but it was way too high! It would however be perfect for any elderly person who has difficulty getting up from a low height. It had flip down arm rests which also might be helpful. ||RESTAURANT|There is a bottle neck in the middle of the restaurant which I detailed in my review last October. This time, I had less luck having breakfast when the restaurant was n't busy so most mornings, in my wheelchair, I was in people's way. So - in view of the large number of accessible restaurants within a stone's throw of the hotel - I'm going to go room only in future and go out...