We stayed at the Ca’l Bisbe Hotel in Soller, on a complimentary basis, for the first three nights of our inntravel Mallorca walking holiday press trip.  Although I had asked for explicit directions on how to reach the hotel’s car park, which lies a good 300 metres from the hotel itself, we still couldn’t find the car park due to a very unclear one way system and ended up parking the car in the street and wheeling our cases along very uneven pavements to the Ca’l Bisbe. As it turned out, the official car park was actually further from the hotel than the street where we parked.  However, the hotel is located a five minute walk from the main square in Soller, in a converted bishop’s residence.

The exterior of the Ca’l Bisbe Hotel

The lobby area of the Ca’l Bisbe was very attractive. There was free wifi in the lobby with a very good signal.

Lobby of Ca’l Bisbe Hotel

Our room was a good size with a high ceiling with wooden beams. The room was furnished in a simple, traditional style. Unfortunately what looked like a large double bed was in fact two single beds pushed together but made up with single bed linen, once the top bedspread was removed.  There was a small hole which looked like a cigarette burn on the top cover of one of the beds. The single beds were pretty uncomfortable.

Our room at Ca’l Bisbe

There were two liquid soap/shower gel dispensers in the bathroom, one near the sink and one by the bath.  On our first night there was only a small amount left in the sink dispenser, the other was empty. These were not refilled until our third day.  The towels were past their best with fraying at the edges.

The best feature of the room was a the balcony which had wonderful views over the pool and the surrounding mountains.

View from the balcony of our room at Ca’l Bisbe

The pool area was very attractive.

Breakfast at the Ca’l Bisbe was good, with a selection of yoghurts, cereal, smoked salmon, cold meats, cheese, scrambled eggs and bacon.  We had dinner one night and it was rather disappointing, my soup starter and the fish main course were lukewarm and my pineapple dessert, consisting only of pieces of fruit on skewers, tasted as though it had been made up of tinned pineapple.

Ca’l Bisbe restuarant ready to serve dinner

We did have a bad experience with a rather surly member of staff over a misunderstanding about our packed lunch. It wouldn’t have even been so bad if the picnic had been decent but it consisted of one small baguette with a slice of cheese (nothing else), one apple and a 330ml bottle of water per person. However, one of the receptionists went out of her way to help us with directions and even offered a late checkout on our day of departure.

The Ca’l Bisbe does have some very good points, being in a beautiful, historic building, a lovely pool area, balconies with scenic views and free wifi. In my opinion, the Ca’l Bisbe has the potential to be a great hotel, if they buy some decent new double beds and linen,  keep on top of room supplies, improve the quality of picnics and dinner and impress upon all staff the need to be polite with guests. It’s probably better not to have a car when staying at the Ca’l Bisbe, as the hotel lies off a one way street, making it hard to work out how to get there, even to drop off and pick up your luggage and the hotel’s car park isn’t very conveniently located.

Keep It Real Travel Review – No Fluff