Mallorca - hotel vs. villa?

[DancingLola]

We are looking to book our first family holiday abroad with DSes (6 & 1) budget is £2500ish. Settled on Mallorca as flights are relatively short.

Trouble is I can't work out whether hotel or villa would be best though! I like the idea of a villa for a bit of peace, but in reality I think DS1 would enjoy company of other kids his age. I've been reading so many mixed reviews on Trip Advisor, can anyone help with some recommendations please?

Sorry, should have said we are looking to book for 1 week, earliest we can go is 24th July, latest is 27th August.

What about going for an aparthotel? That way you get your own space, but still have other families around! We stayed in an apartment in Porto Pollensa a few years ago when the kids were younger; it was fine but was a 1st floor apt. There were individual bungalow type villas there that faced onto a communal pool (which I would have preferred - kids could nip in and out of the pool and back to their accommodation in seconds). A pool bar/restaurant on-site is handy too!

Browsing for similar- 3cats do you remember the name of where the aparthotel was?

Villaparade do nice villas in mallorca. Have used them a few times and always been good. They are quite pricey in July and August though might be quite tight with flights and accom for £2500 (depending on where you are flying from)
Apartments around a communal pool might be nice. There are really nice ones near Puerto Pollensa called Bellresguard.

lizard We stayed at the Leo Apartments. Ours was pretty basic but fine, but the ground floor apartments round the pool looked nice and the outdoor space is lovely. Two different pools, very quiet area; maybe a bit too far from the beach and town for little ones to walk (more than the 700m they advertise it as!) We didn't have a car so lots of walking for us! There is a supermarket round the corner and a bar/restaurant.
The Bahia Aparthotel looks good and it's much nearer the beach; good reviews too!
I just found that when we stayed in a 1st floor apt it's a bit of a trek to the pool, then one of the kids gets hot, wants to go back inside, you go looking for them (watching telly!), drag them back out again, and meeting DH and DD on your way back (they're too hot now!). That's why last year we went for a villa, straight out onto pool area. There are apartments that do this; it's just finding them!

Thanks, an Aparthotel sounds like it would be a good compromise, so I will get searching for somewhere in our budget. The bungalow type accommodation sounds good 3cats

I'll check out Villaparade too magenta. Cheapest flights I can find are around £800 so will see if there's anything left in our price range!

Aparta hotels are great, you get a bedroom separate to the DCs and a basic kitchen and a FRIDGE!

A fridge means you can keep cold meat, cheese, coke, lemonade and booze cold. This means you can have picnic lunch on the balcony while baby naps. (This is also massively cheaper than lunch out if you go 1/2 board).

Older DC may snooze, read, play on DS for a bit too. My DDs used to like to play cards or read when 5/7 ish.

They then raced off to the pool again after a rest.

I think what I'm saying is (in my experience) whether it's a villa/bungalow or apartment, I would always go for a ground-floor one in view of the pool.

*within view of the pool!!!

Oh and if the budget stretches to Sa Coma there is a huge Tesco style supermarket called Eroski just up the road. No need to lug nappies and piles of baby stuff it sells everything.

Eroski's are Mallorca wide Nocomet-Dodot's are Spanish version of pampers.

They are quite a bit more expensive though and you never used to be able to get baby wipes that easily so maybe worth taking some.

Hope you find something , there are some really lovely bits of Mallorca like Pollensa and soller and Deia.

Thanks 3cats & sorry to hijack your thread Lola!

3cats was your villa in the same area too?

To add my tuppence- we've done 2 hols abroad now with our dd (she's now 3) by far the easiest holiday when she was about 17 months was a ground floor apartment but on a golf type complex in Portugal. We didn't want/ need any childcare or crèche but it brilliant as dd had her own room. The apartment was beautiful, had our own terrace & get this- a hot tub! Plus when she went for her nap we had our own space to sunbathe so no need to dash back to the room & lug towels etc- way out of budget now. Last year we did a last min trip to Cyprus to a holiday village place- this was nice & would have been great of DD was a fews years older (like your eldest Lola) but she was a bit knackered by the end of the day to wait for the restaurant to open/ evening entertainment (we went all inc) so DH & I ended up eating if shifts! I think for us the combination of your own space, enough bedrooms, accommodation plus a nice setting if Dc's need to go to bed but places to eat onsite/ not far are perfect- at least then the adults feel like they have had a holiday too

lizard You sound like you've had some nice holidays. The Leo apts are in P/Pollensa; it was the first holiday abroad we'd had with the kids (after many years of Pembrokeshire & Devon) so we were a bit clueless. The block of apartments were a little basic but perfectly clean, and as I said it was a bit of trek to the beach and town with no car. It was a lovely quiet place, and good for little ones. We've lived & learned since then and I know what I'm looking for now (doesn't stop me spending all of Jan/Feb googling though!!)

I've stayed on the Leo apartments, they were fine, basic but it's a very small complex, so you're relying on the other few guests I suppose for your DCs to make friends with. There is a Thomson family place in puerto P too, but I've never been. We had a beach front apartment when the kids were very small, it was cheap, but no pool so went to the beach each day. We always have a villa now, but we always go with another family so the kids have friends there.

If you can find one, an apart-hotel would be a great compromise, especially pool front ground floor so your little one can easily be put down for a nap without you being too far away.

We've stayed at the Flora Aparthotel for the past few years in Puerto pollensa. Apartments are at the more basic end of the spectrum but the location is fantastic only 5 minutes from the beach, the pine walk and the main town square.