Cala D'Or

[Mamaemmeline]

I would love some opinions on Cala D'Or. I'm looking to book our first family holiday abroad, will have a 6yo and 3yo.

I know various people who went 5+ years ago and say how lovely it is which is why we were considering it. Whilst looking at hotels lots say enjoy the lively nightlife and party the night away!!! Completely not what we're after but don't know if the resort has changed or just the way it is marketed to draw more people in. Any thoughts?

We're looking for somewhere with good beaches and pools, marina, small town for pottering, some restaurants.

No way! I thought it was lovely. Like you say really clean. We did all inclusive and there was lots of fresh salads and meat. I loved the fact that we had a little garden. We got ourselves some loungers and no worries about having to get a place by the pool.

We went there a few years ago. It’s quite far from anywhere else so you may be a little confined to there. It was nice and quiet and still a newish resort so not many mature trees. Which meant that there was very little shade and it was very difficult to walk around with children in the middle of the day.
Also the coves/beaches are tiny and were VERY crowded.
The hotel was lovely - sorry, I can’t remember the name but it was quite central in the town with large pool and excellent evening entertainment for young children.
The lack of shade and crowded beaches however meant I would not return.

We stayed in the one someone mentioned - the inturotel esmerelda hotel complex. First experience of an “inclusive” hotel - normally we’d done self catering city type holidays. It was so lovely, and (most importantly) the food was excellent. Beach was lovely too and the pools were v nice. But it was much more of a little tourist spot - we mostly ate in the hotel, there were a few restaurants around but it wasn’t really “potter around the pretty town and see the marina”. But we weren’t looking for that at the time so wasn’t a problem! There are plenty of prettier little towns along the coast, there was one bigger town where there were the dragon caves (?) where we had a lovely seafood meal by the marina. Gorgeous area in general, beautiful swimming with v clear water. Lots of the hotels were more German than English, as far as the overseas tourist trade went. This was fine for us as it meant there was interesting nubbly bread :-)

We’ve stayed at both Cala ferrera and Cala gran. We love the starfish boat

Oh yes, the starfish boat is wonderful. My current screensaver is from Cala Figuera wholich we spotted from the boat and went to visit another day. Wonderful little harbour.

This was our view in Cala ferrera, our favourite place ❤️

So beautiful 😍 so lovely to see blue skies. Bet it's like that there now.....

We've booked 10 nights there! Thank you so much for your help!

Hit me with your must dos there!

Email the hotel directly and ask them for a ground floor apartment with a garden. I did and ran it through Google translate so it was in Spanish. They're so good with kids as you have French windows out to the garden, they were running the sports club in the garden right outside our garden so I could chill on my lounger and watch ds3 have fun.

Ohhh I’m jealous @Mamaemmeline We absolutely love it there but it’s “house move” Year so no abroad holiday for us. You’ll have a fab time! When are you going? 😊

Starfish boat is good! Wee train to the marina is lovely too 😊 never have dessert in the hotel or restaurant - go an evening walk to Cala D’ice ice cream place - it’s amazing!!

How lovely!! Hope you have a great time. If you like this sort of thing, I’d hugely recommend these caves: www.cuevasdeldrach.com/en/

They’re amazing, really impressive, and there’s a cheesy but actually rather lovely music performance on the underground lake.

Can anyone tell me if you can swim in the sea in May in Cala d’Or? Or is the sea water too cold then?