La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel vs Four Seasons Resort Mallorca at Formentor

What you're paying for here is the hillside above Deià, not the room. Guest after guest describes the same thing: two old manor houses terraced into the Tramuntana, and a complimentary programme that does real work — an olive grove hike sometimes led by the GM, a sunset cruise to a hidden lagoon, poolside vitamin C mist and almond service that people call the best they've had at any hotel. Special occasions get handled with unusual care: a scraped rental car replaced overnight without a single phone call, allergy details tracked across multiple meals unprompted, a proposal run with no scripted fuss. That's the case for booking, and it holds up across years of accounts.

The base rooms are the catch. Multiple stays describe dated bathrooms, an aging TV, and air conditioning that couldn't hold the line in August 2023, stuck at 78°F. A refresh is talked about but hasn't landed everywhere, so a junior suite or above is worth the reach when you can get it (one recent upgrade into the Matthew Williamson suite reads like a different hotel entirely). Dining is the other soft spot: Café Miró and El Olivo have real atmosphere, but the cooking doesn't match what's a short drive away in Deià, and cocktail pricing draws complaints even from guests who loved everything else. More seriously: several unconnected travellers, in different years, describe being stopped and questioned on property in ways that read as racially targeted. That's not incidental and it deserves real weight before you book.

Worth it for the setting, the grounds, and the included experiences — especially May, June, or September, in a room above base category if you can swing it. Go for the hillside and the cruise, not the plate in front of you.

The old Hotel Formentor was rebuilt as a Four Seasons, and the reports agree the flag earned its name: the service goes well beyond a script. Guests describe handwritten notes waiting at every table, a GM who checks in mid-stay unprompted, birthday surprises that clearly weren't templated. Shima, the Japanese-Peruvian restaurant, comes up in nearly every account as reason enough to book, vegetarian tasting menu included. Mel, the second restaurant, is more of a mixed bag: good food, but portions that can feel thin for what you're paying on an off night.

The peninsula itself is the real cost of staying here. One guest counted 183 cyclists and 16 tour buses on a five-mile stretch of the only access road, and said it made her husband refuse to drive after dark, cancelling every dinner they'd planned off property. With just two restaurants on site, that road turns anything beyond four or five nights into a repeat-menu problem. A hotel boat to Port Pollença helps, but wasn't running full service as of last season. Scattered complaints about AC and tech glitches, plus one 30-minute luggage wait after a personal welcome, read as opening-year teething rather than a pattern worth knowing before you book.

Families come away particularly convinced, with several ranking it alongside Borgo Egnazia and Marbella Club for that specific trip, praising warmth for kids that never curdles into a kids'-resort vibe. Book this for four nights, plan the road into your itinerary rather than around it, and let Shima do the rest.