Protur Bonaire Mallorca - anyone been there or have other recommendations?

[DaydreamDollyisshrinking]

Hi all, we are trying to find a week away in the sun end of June, have been recommended the above but DH thinks it may be a bit butlins-y

Anyone been there, or can recommend somewhere family friendly and not too far away for us and DD who will be 23 months?

Thanks in advance

Anyone? Sorry to shamelessly bump

Whereabouts in Majorca is it?

It's in Cala Bona I believe

Bump

Its fantastic when you've got a young DC. I wrote a long review on tripadvisor when we got back last May - it may be worth trying to find that. Yes, it could be a bit Butlins-y but you can avoid that, especially if you contact the hotel directly & ask for a room which doesn't over look the pool as that is where all of the entertainment goes on and music is played from 10 - 5 or something. Ask for a room at the rear of block 4 and then no one overlooks you & you get to look out over the mountain.

In summary

• accom - not swish but clean and has everything you need. We put DD into the cot in the bedroom every night and then just sat in the sitting room or on the balcony until we wanted to go to bed. Having a small kitchen area, especially a fridge, was great. If you can be bothered, take a dish cloth, a small amount of washing up liquid etc with you as otherwise you have to buy it (at premium prices) and throw
• food - don't go for All Inc as the food in the restaurant & bar is pretty grim. It will be fine for the odd evening but not a whole week. The main bit of Cala Bona is a 5 min flat, mainly pedestrianisd walk and has loads of restaurants from pie & chips to decent paella, mainly reasonably priced but a couple of more expensive ones -things for children to do - Thomson do a creche which I thought was a bargain for something like £6 for a 2 hour session. 3 evenings a week, they do evening creche from 7 - 10 so you get to go out for dinner. Bliss! Book it the day you get there as, unsurprisingly, those slots go really quickly. We also put DD in for the odd day time session so we got some uninterupted time by the pool. Again, bliss! There are also toddler story sessions, a soft play place, a shaded play area, a sand pit & loads of ride ons that you just abandon when you've finished with them. I imagine it could all get a bit hectic in the school holidays but in term time it was fine.
• child friendliness - obviously the complex itself is very child friendly. Some restaurants in Cala Bona had highchairs; others didn't. Few places had baby changing
• car hire - we hired a car for the week which we picked up from the airport. Knowing we could escape when we wanted to was a good antidote to the threat of a Butlins-y atmosphere. There are loads of nice little fishing villages to get to. Also, as we had a kitchen & a car and drove to one of the bigger supermarkets and had a couple of nights of eating "in" and having tapas
• Cala Bona - see above re restaurants. Shops mainly selling tourist tat. A couple of Spar type shops within a 5 min walk of the complex selling every day essentials (bread, fruit etc) plus useful items like nappies (v expensive though) & swim nappies.
• Flights - if you end up on a ridiculously early flight from Gatwick, consider staying at the Sofitel at the terminal the night before. You can check in yourselves & your luggage the night before and then just have to walk to the security gate in the morning.

Let me know if there's anything else you want to know. We thought it was brilliant. Not the sort of thing we would have thought of doing pre-DD but it made it all so easy & for that reason we've just booked another Thomson holiday in May.

Let me know if you've got any more question

Thank you Murtette for really good advice. We booked to go here in July.

Basically it does sound Butlinsy (as I thought) but as we've paid the deposit and another chunk of cash this could be a positive thing if you have a good room location, make good use of the fantastic pool complex and hire a car and stroll into cala bona if it all gets too much.

We booked to go here in July to coincide with school holidays following the mainly great reviews/ratings on trip advisor. Thinking that if the kids were happy and amused so would we be. The cost is extortionate due to school holiday rates. But more worryingly some of the more recent reviews on trip advisor and on the forum are quite alarming....from staunch defenders and supporters of the Bonaire.....! It's all turned into a bit of a battle ground on trip advisor with people being accused of being whingers, nit pickers and pensioners if the dare to have a family holiday in April (whilst the schools are off) and pay 'dolly mixtures' for it. They should not question or mention anything negative about the 'bonaire'.....!

A friend of a friend (who incidently isn't a pensioner) visited the area recently for an easter break but didn't stay in the hotel. She said the facilities at Bonaire for kids (where great). However, the pool was freezing due to it being early in season (which she half expected). More worryingly though, she did say some of the clientelle staying there were quite rough and their was a lot of very lax parenting going on....! Although they did come accross some nice people staying there I think when she visited they were in the minority.

I was hoping due to the high cost the cleintelle might be a little more upmarket in July or it will all be too much for me. Now I am wondering what on earth I have let myself and my family in for...? So I was glad to read your review and I have your tips as a back up if it all gets too much.