Riu Bravo Hotel

Just returned from a 4 night stay at the RIU Bravo and what a fantastic time! We were travelling as 3 women 26, 32 and 33. On arrival the hotel is clean, modern and inviting. At check in we were upgraded to a suite! What a lovely surprise and given 3 glasses of champagne. Reception were friendly and quick process. We went up to our room and it was beautiful, a room for 3 people it was huge! With lots of storage and mirrors, perfect for us girls! Safe was free to use. Food at the hotel is fantastic! Drinks are great NOT WATERED DOWN AT ALL! Sun beds can go quickly by the pool so we did go down at 9am every morning to get our favourite pool bar spot! This hotel is mostly German guests, but we found everyone to be extremely friendly and all spoke english. Location is great, 2 minutes to the beach, the strip is the next street and we got the bus to Palma for 1.50 euro, definitely worth going. Negatives: -Although it was great the lifeguards are there to nip n the bud any rowdyness or noise, sometimes it felt like you couldn't have fun! We were told we couldn't play volly ball, couldn't play beer pong, couldn't cheer and even were shouted at when we all said cheers to a drink. -The pool bar should be Adults only, kids splashing you whilst you try and chill, jumping off the bar and filling the jacuzzi was annoying. They would scream, jump off the bar and play games which was apparently allowed? -There is a huge tree shading the pool, this should be cut back.

We had done our homework before booking, so knew this resort was more or less similar to Magaluf, but with mainly German youngsters rather than Brits, but we wanted a decent standard hotel, within a short distance from the airport for the taxi transfer and also a mere 15-20 mins by bus into Palma itself. It fitted the bill perfectly! Being in our 60’s the resort itself had nothing to offer us, as it was full of partying youngsters, but the location was great for what we wanted. The taxi from the airport took just 10 minutes and cost €18 each way. The Palma City Express bus no 25, stops a two minute walk away, runs every 15 minutes and costs just €1.50 each way. The hotel itself is in an oasis of relative calm. We must have been lucky as we didn’t suffer with any noise problems at night as some reviewers here have reported, but there is some traffic noise in the grounds and pool areas from the main road that runs alongside the hotel. Our room was on the first floor and overlooked the lawns near the poolside restaurant. There are two pool areas - the busy main pool with the noisy swim up bar close by and the smaller rectangular pool up the side which was much quieter. This area also had the more comfortable loungers with sun shades that you could pull across when required. We never had trouble getting any, but then we usually went there before 10. On one occasion, they had all been taken, but there were several stacks of loungers that you could help yourself to and lots of lawned area under the trees, which was pleasant. The food in the main buffet area was fantastic! So much choice at every meal. No complaints from us there. The poolside restaurant had a more limited choice, but was available throughout the day from about 10.30 onwards. We found the staff really nice and friendly and the majority spoke good English, which was surprising as the majority of guests were German. We did have one slight problem, in that the bathroom kept flooding from the toilet cistern, so clean fresh water, but still annoying! We reported it several times and on each occasion, they sent a cleaner within minutes to mop it up, but bizarrely never sent anyone to actually fix the problem!!!! Maybe they were waiting for the room to be vacant? All in all, we enjoyed our stay and would return again for the mix of relaxation and ease of getting out and about into Palma.