Ferrera Blanca

We visited in July/August as a family of 4, kids are 11 and 7. Will start off by saying the Entertainment team are fantastic. We have never experienced hotel entertainment like it, during the days and evenings.

We also loved the pools and visited each one during the day, the splash park area was a firm favourite but the busiest to sit around so we often just popped over for half an hour at a time.

The Ants are a problem. I didn’t mind them in the room as this was sorted immediately by the staff, but they crawl all over the bar area, near the fresh drinks garnishes. This really put me off and I think something needs to be done to get rid of them in this particular area.

We enjoyed breakfast and lunches but we didn’t rate dinner, we just didn’t enjoy what was on offer but this is personal opinion.

Sunbed situation was rubbish for the first day or two until the manager removed a load of towels from beds before the pool opened where no one was sitting, this was brilliant and really set a precedent for the rest of the holiday, we were going down after the pool opened at about 10:30 and still were managing to get at least one bed at the main pool.

All in all a lovely holiday!

Extremely disappointing – nothing like it used to be

This was our 5th time visiting, so we clearly loved this place enough to keep coming back. Unfortunately, this visit was by far the most disappointing, and we left feeling genuinely short-changed.

The resort has changed dramatically, and in our opinion, many of those changes have been for the worse.

When we arrived, we were told that half of the complex is now adults-only. We are a family of five with three children, so this immediately meant that a large part of the resort was no longer available to us. What makes this even more frustrating is that the old snack bar has now become an adults-only restaurant. This used to be one of the best parts of the resort, with fresh pizza being cooked throughout the day. That has now completely disappeared.

The replacement snack bar by the children’s pool is a huge downgrade. The food is predominantly deep-fried, and pizzas were few and far between. For a 4-star resort, we expected much better food options, particularly when this used to be something the resort did extremely well.

The evening entertainment was another major disappointment. On previous visits, there were professional shows and much more impressive entertainment. This time, it was largely in-house entertainment, which was nowhere near the standard we remember. One evening, the entertainment consisted of showing an animated Spider-Man film on a big outdoor screen. Quite frankly, that is not what we expect from a 4-star establishment, especially when we have previously experienced much better.

Then there was the room. It simply wasn’t big enough for four people, and the sofa bed was incredibly uncomfortable. It got to the point where I was genuinely looking forward to getting home just so I could finally get a decent night’s sleep. That’s not how you want to feel after paying for a holiday.

What makes all of this even more disappointing is that we knew what this resort used to offer. This wasn’t our first visit — it was our fifth. We have seen the resort at its best, which makes the decline even more noticeable.

It now feels as though the resort has made significant changes without considering the experience of returning families. There needs to be a much better balance between adults and children, rather than taking away facilities that families previously enjoyed and replacing them with inferior alternatives.

Sadly, after five visits, we will not be returning. We genuinely used to love this place and had always looked forward to coming back. This time, however, we left feeling disappointed, frustrated and, ultimately, like we had not received the experience we had paid for.

A huge shame, because this used to be somewhere we would happily recommend. Sadly, we can no longer say that.

Upon arrival the issues started. The room was not ready for 3pm (which it should have been) so we had to sit in reception with two under 6 children for an hour while the cleaners finished. There was little by way of an apology from the reception team. We weren’t offered a drink or given any information about what we could do or where we could go in that period with our kids being tired and upset.

The room was tiny, not suitable for a family of four and the sofa bed was uncomfortable to say the least. The air con (or should I say, blowers) work ok for the living area but not in the bedroom space adequately. The bedroom had an ant infestation which was addressed once but came back again during our stay. There is not enough wardrobe or hanging space for a family of four’s clothes so we lived out of suitcases - hardly comfortable. The bathroom was outdated with a broken shower head, little temperature control, loose and poor quality fittings, hard towels and for three days we had no water pressure intermittently. Not the standard you expect for 4 stars. The safe is chargeable - what 4 star hotel in the 21st century charges for the safe!?

Room cleaning and bed turnover happens every other day which was disappointing, especially when you’ve been to the beach because you couldn’t get a space by the pool and the sand is everywhere. We ended up asking for cleaning equipment to do it ourselves - so relaxing!

Pool/beach towels can only be changed three times a week and on one day the reception had no stock left so we went three days with dirty ones.

The sunbed situation is a joke. There are not enough of them. Put more in! Especially in the kids splash area, there is a whole strip of grass at the back where people started resorting to laying on the ground - not exactly the luxurious, relaxing experience for your customers on their expensive once a year holidays.

The kids splash area is grim towards the end of the day with food and drink all over the floor, especially in the snack area. We didn’t observe any cleaning process happening during the day. I told my kids never to walk around without footwear on as it really was quite dirty.

The lifeguards at the pools are useless. Long periods of times between change over where no one is attendance, especially the pool at the back. Lifeguards on their phones not paying attention, hiding in stairwells, sometimes standing a long way away and intermittently peering over the wall to check whether a child may have drowned etc.

The food at the restaurant, while generally good quality, is limited in selection, repetitive and often understocked. The restaurant was also not clean at times. We noticed food all over the floor as staff often just brushed it off tables and the windows were disgusting, covered in stains and finger prints that weren’t cleaned once during our stay. Just buy some glass cleaner!

Ultimately the hotel feels tired, unable to provide a genuinely relaxing experience, is not worthy of four stars and after 9 days I was ready to go home.

Cala D’or and Majorca is beautiful. This hotel is not.