HM Balanguera — Hotel in Palma

Just back from a four day trip to Palma de Mallorca, where we based ourselves at the HM Balanguera hotel. The staff were all charming, and the hotel suited us perfectly – being an easy 20 minutes stroll to all the city’s attractions. ||The building is very attractive, with some rather lovely interior architectural features, not dissimilar to that of seen in the work of Antoni Guadí and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It certainly worth taking the stairs rather than the lift, to appreciate the irregular sizes and positions of its windows, plus the integration of the lighting in the common areas. ||Our room, on the third floor, was a generous size. It contained a super king-size bed. The room window was framed by shelves with baskets for clothes and a mini-fridge on one side, and a hanging rail with ample hangers and a safe deposit box on the other. A desk with two chairs lined the bottom of the window. No curtains, by the way. Wooden shutters instead. ||A partition wall separated the sleeping area from the washing space of a sink with mirrors, plus a hairdryer. The toilet and tile-lined shower room, with rain-forest shower, were both accessed through a separate door. ||If you like light switches, then this is your hotel. There were light switches for just about everything – recessed LEDs, bedside lights, wardrobe lights, main down-lighters, wash space light, bathroom lights. At times this felt excessive, especially when a couple of switches could’ve probably have controlled everything. We also felt that some instructions in the room on how to use the room’s air conditioning controls would have been beneficial. We found the temperature occasionally too warm, but were unable to make the air conditioning produce cool air. ||The hotel’s foyer, lounge and dining area is very cool and contemporary. The complimentary breakfast had something for everyone, and we certainly didn’t go hungry. In addition we used the hotel’s bar service on a couple of evenings for a nightcap, when other bars in the surrounding area weren’t open. ||We did venture up to the small roof terrace with its plunge pool, but as the weather wasn’t particularly sunny during our stay, we didn’t find a need to use these facilities. ||My last thought is about the hotel’s location. Before booking this hotel I read several reviews that complained about the traffic noise. What do people expect? City centres can be busy, noisy places. Both my boyfriend and I own apartments in Edinburgh city centre, and we certainly didn’t have any problems with noise levels at this hotel. In fact, we found the roads to be quieter at night time, than where we live. Remember, if you want peace and tranquility then book a country hotel.||Thanks HM Balanguera, we enjoyed our stay with you. And we would certainly consider staying with you again on our next visit to Palma...

Update: 8/15/2023 - the hotel came back with no resolution from their insurance company, but offered us money back for the inconvenience. We thought this was very nice and professional of them. Kudos to them. We are grateful for this.

Location and staff really good. We had an issue while staying there. We started to get some “mosquito bites” , we saw a couple of mosquitos in the room and we killed them so we thought that was the issue. 5 days later, and after we got home out bodies were full of them, and we kept on getting more after we got home for at least another week. We Notified the hotel immediately (this is a day after we got home) because that’s when they peaked. We told them it may have been bed bugs ( we never dealt with something like this before, so we didn’t even know how to identify it). We went to the doctor back home because it got really bad and the dr. Agreed that it must have been bed bugs. Doctor sent us medicated lotion, and told us that the chances we could have brought them back home were high. It has been over 2 months and we are still waiting for the hotel to tell us what their internal investigation and their insurance told them. This whole 2 months we have spent hours and hours and money in products to disinfect our bed and clothes. We have spent $$$ in electricity using the dryer to heat up pretty much everything we brought to the trip for over an hour several times a week. I have been emailing the hotel on a weekly basis asking for an answer, asking for them to do the right thing and help us with a resolution. They keep emailing us telling us they are waiting for a resolution from their insurance company . We are experienced travelers, we have traveled the world. I never never in my life experienced anything like this. :( If this would have been back home ( 🇺🇸) they would have gotten back to us within the same week. Sadly, Although staff was super nice while we were there, and hotel location was good, I would never stay in any of their...

Nice hotel, spotlessly clean. Rooms a bit small. Free minibar, which is nice, containing 1x little beer, some water and juice. However this is not replenished during your stay. Unfortunately the extraction and aircon is turned off when you leave the room and take your key-card, so the bathroom tends to stay stuffy and damp and ours had a bit of a funky smell from the drain. Also, 1-ply super cheap toilet paper, which seems a strange choice for a 4-star hotel. The roof has a nice swimming pool and chill area and a nice view, but there is no bar or food service - there is a vending machine for snacks. There's a phone you can use to ring reception for them to bring you drinks, but it didn't work when we were there. The breakfast is really pretty good and very cheap for what you get, and it's served until 10am! Bacon, eggs, etc as well as cereals, yoghurt, fresh fruit, coffee and little pastries. It gave us a super start to each day, so we really appreciated it. What the hotel lacked in amenities (a bar would have been nice), it made up for in the service from the staff. They were all so helpful and friendly, and went out of their way to be pleasant and helpful throughout our stay. The location is pretty good. It's not the nicest part of Palma, but it's just a short walk to the old town and most things you'd want to see. If you're old or don't fancy walking, it's only about 5-10 euros for a taxi from right outside the hotel to the city centre and I believe there are bus routes too, although we didnt use them. There is a little shop exactly next door to the hotel, open until midnight, where you can buy cold water, snacks and other useful things you might want during your stay (we bought cold water here every night), so it's very convenient. Definitely...