Santuari de Lluc

This place is great if you want quiet and nature, and I don’t understand the negative reviews. Some people seem not to realize where they’re going or what to expect. I was traveling alone and found it ideal. The mountain location is a huge plus, with hiking trails leading both west and east and no housing developments nearby. There are only two restaurants, a café, and a souvenir shop close by, with a campsite and another restaurant farther on. Check-in and checkout were fine. Hotel guests can visit the small, lovely botanical garden. I’m not religious, but the Basilica was still a memorable experience, with the scent of old wood and silence inside. There’s also a hill with a cross at the top, an easy five-minute climb for a rest day and views from above. I booked a double room through my holiday website but was given a single. I’m not sure why, but since I was alone I didn’t ask to change it. I checked the bed and mattress for bedbugs and found none, which matters most to me when traveling. The room was simple, tidy, and clean, as you’d expect in a converted monastery. The dirty upholstery on the chair was the one thing I’d change. I’d rather have a basic metal or plastic chair that was clean. The walls are thin, so comfort depends on other guests being considerate. Don’t come here to party and get drunk, you’ll spoil it for everyone else. During my five days, someone tried to clean the room once. I only asked for a fresh towel. If you need daily cleaning and fresh sheets on holiday, you should reconsider this place. Breakfast was standard, with sweet and savory choices. I don’t know what people who call it monotonous expect. At home, do you get three types of bread, three cheeses, five cold cuts, eggs, six kinds of fruit, four pastries, three porridges, three juices, and two kinds of milk, including gluten-free? :D I didn’t find it monotonous. The coffee was average, not the best I’ve had, but passable. I still don’t understand the negative opinions. The downsides, thin walls and a dirty chair, were minor to me. If you want peace and mountain views, you’ll be happy here. If you want to party, go somewhere else.

The surroundings are lovely, the rooms are clean and well equipped despite having no air conditioning, and the area around Santuari is picturesque. But the local food and the staff’s attitude and service undermined all of that for us. My partner and I arrived at the end of October, after the main tourist season. We still expected professional behavior and respect as guests willing to pay for good service. We planned to travel around all of Mallorca and had already seen quite a bit. This was easily our most expensive stop, and the worst. The service felt careless from the start. When bringing wine, the waiter should ask who wants to taste it, but he poured it for me automatically even though my partner is the wine expert. At another table, he closed a red wine bottle with a cork, which just isn’t done. For dinner, ordering a starter and main apparently meant one set of cutlery. We left ours on the plate after the starter, and the waiter took it off the plate, set it on the table, and carried the dishes away. We had to ask for clean cutlery and got another disapproving look. The plates were also put down as if the waiter were tossing a bone to a dog. The food seemed to be entirely pre-made, with no culinary care or craftsmanship. Even breakfast showed it: staff couldn’t keep up, many items were unavailable, and some food’s freshness was questionable. Birds were constantly flying over the restaurant area and directly above the food and our heads, which felt extremely unhygienic. The buffet was laid out so badly that my partner and I kept going back and forth, bumping into people in the resulting chaos. Throughout it all, the staff seemed bored and unwilling to be there, looking at you as if you were worthless. It felt like their main goal was for you to pay and leave. It’s a beautiful place in a beautiful setting, but the price doesn’t come close to being justified by the quality. Fine for a short half-day visit, but definitely not an overnight stay.

The staff were friendly, though they sometimes seemed short-handed at breakfast. Breakfast itself was pretty simple, and I wish the boiled eggs had been warm. The rooms are basic but have the essentials, so for a short stay when you want to save money, it could be a nice option. Our experience was okay overall, and you get what you pay for. We stayed nine nights, and they only clean rooms every three days. Even then, they changed the sheets but didn’t refill the hand soap or sweep the floor. We drank a lot of water, but there was no large bin for bottles. We had to leave them on the floor, and they were never collected, so they piled up over the nine nights. The fans were dusty, and when we turned them on, dust blew everywhere. These basic things shouldn’t cost much to address for the price we paid. There wasn’t a full-length mirror either. I’m very short, and the only mirror was mounted above the sink. There were also no hooks or places to hang towels or swimsuits to dry. We wouldn’t choose it for a long stay again.

The best part was the nature around the old monastery. Mountain goats came down from the surrounding peaks in the mornings, and I could even see them from the room window. The area is stunning and perfect for long hikes. The place has been renovated, but the style is still very simple, almost spartan. The beds are extremely basic, with an unpleasant plastic-like cover. Once I removed it, I actually slept great. There was a sewage smell coming into the room from outside the whole time, and the pool was fine, nothing more. Breakfast at the restaurant got so repetitive that by the third day I honestly didn’t know what else to eat.