The honest review of La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel

Deia is magical, but our service at the Belmond was a real letdown.

We went a couple of years ago and still preferred it over the alternative we compared it with, but neither stay was perfect. Deia itself is magical and worth the trip on its own, though service at the hotel missed the mark more than once. I'd book a private catamaran while there and would consider going back in the off season when it's quieter.

Nothing bad to say from front desk through pool service through dining, and the setting made every bit of it feel special.

Every part of my stay, from the front desk and concierge to the pool team and the restaurants, felt like five-star execution. The setting is magical and the hotel uses it well, and while there's no real beach access nearby, the pool more than made up for it. It's a 45 minute drive to most things off property, which I actually liked because it forced us to just enjoy being there.

The scenery was beautiful but I never got a response after my laundry went missing.

The setting itself is gorgeous, and service was often very good, but it could also be slow or completely unresponsive. I reached out about laundry that never came back to us and never heard anything, and only realized after checkout that we'd been charged for it anyway. A call or a refund would have gone a long way.

We paid seventy euros for a water, a lemonade and a cocktail and felt completely ripped off.

The place looks fine at first glance but the drink pricing has no real justification behind it, either in quality or in service. It felt like being taken advantage of as a tourist rather than treated like a guest, and I wouldn't come back or recommend it to anyone based on that alone.

We got upgraded to a suite that was nothing like the dark, rustic rooms I'd read about online.

Everything I'd read warned me about dark, rustic rooms, so getting upgraded into the Matthew Williamson suite was a genuine surprise: bold color and a completely different, joyful feel from the base-category photos. My kids, eight and ten, were thrilled with the heated pools and activities, and the whole stay felt like somewhere special rather than just somewhere expensive.

Coming straight from a hotel in Barcelona with extraordinary food, the dining here was genuinely the weak point.

Everything about this stay was strong except the restaurants, which didn't hit the level of the property we'd just come from on the same trip, and that gap mattered more given how good the nearby restaurants in Deia are for the price. Service, the setting, the room and the overall atmosphere I have nothing but praise for. It's just the food on property that didn't quite keep pace with everything else.

The rooms are a bit dated, but it works here in a way that doesn't feel run down.

The two complaints I hear most are the air conditioning not always working well, which I've mostly seen mentioned online rather than from people I actually know who stayed there, and rooms being a bit dated. Both are true, but the rooms are still nicely appointed, more brown wood and granite than the white marble look of some competitors, and it just kind of fits the place. It's right in Deia, which gets busy with tour buses during the day but is genuinely charming, and it's close to Cala Deia for the water and to Valdemossa and Soller for day trips.

The pool service here is the best I've experienced at any hotel, full stop.

Check-in was relaxed, with a welcome drink and snacks at the Miro terrace while our bags disappeared ahead of us. Our base room in the original building was rustic in a good way, four-poster bed, dark wood, terracotta tile, and views over the lawn toward Deia, though the bathroom felt a generation behind the rest of the room. At the pool, iced water with orange slices and a vitamin C mist arrived before we'd even set our things down, a call button meant drinks showed up within a minute, and every interaction from breakfast to housekeeping felt warm and unhurried.

My wife was stopped and questioned by staff multiple times while walking around the property, and it never happened to me once.

Three nights in, a few things stood out beyond the setting. Staff approached my wife, who is ethnically Chinese, several separate times to ask if she was a guest, something that didn't happen to me at all during the same stay. The adults-only and indoor pools were often left unattended until people complained, towels had to be tracked down ourselves, and when a storm interrupted room service one evening, nobody told us our order wasn't coming until we called to check.

I've been coming back for ten years and somehow it keeps getting better every time.

I've stayed at some of the best hotels in the world, but none of them have captured me the way this place has. It's not really the rooms or the food, even though both are wonderful, it's the people. The same faces greet me year after year, which tells me a lot about how well this hotel treats its staff, and every visit I leave wondering how they'll top it next time.

We only had 24 hours here and it still turned into one of the best parts of our whole trip.

We got in around 9pm and were walked straight to dinner at Miro instead of checking in first, with a pianist playing as the sun went down over the mountains. The next morning I explored the gardens and the Poet's Walk before it got hot, and breakfast the next day was excellent, with the kitchen staff even taking my son back to make him ham and bread exactly how he wanted it. Fernanda at the kids club was the first person he's ever willingly stayed with, and between the cava tasting, the shuttle to Cala Deia, and a sunset cruise on their Pardo boat, 24 hours felt like it wasn't nearly enough.

We've been coming since the Richard Branson days, and it's only improved since LVMH took over.

We started in the Matthew Williamson suite, which has its own private pool reached through a wisteria-covered walkway, colorful cushions everywhere, and a genuinely private feel. We also spent a night in the tower suite with great views, ate very well at the Tramuntana dining area by the large pool, and had an excellent breakfast. Staff couldn't do enough for us, and sitting on the terrace over the gardens with a glass of rose is one of life's real pleasures.

They arranged an overnight replacement rental car without a single phone call from us after we scraped ours.

There was no forced theatrics around the proposal we'd planned, just calm, natural execution that made it feel completely unstaged. What impressed me even more came after: we scraped our rental car during the stay, and by the next morning the hotel had already arranged a replacement without us having to call anyone. That kind of anticipation is why we're already talking about going back.

“That's the kind of problem-solving that anticipates your stress”in their words

Even arriving early, we were welcomed straight into tennis, the pool, and that vitamin C spritz everyone talks about.

Our room was ready hours before check-in with an upgrade and views that actually matched the photos, which felt rarer than it should. Both restaurants, Tramuntana Grill at lunch and Miro at dinner, were excellent, and the spa felt genuinely restorative rather than routine. Small touches added up all week: welcome wine, nightly treats, and someone handing us water for the drive as we left.

The olive grove hike with Xavi was the kind of extra that made this feel like more than just a pool-and-spa hotel.

Staff were friendly and attentive across the whole stay, and the included excursions, especially the morning olive grove walk and the sunset cruise, went well beyond what I expected. The tennis was also a highlight. My one real complaint is the food pricing on property, which is steep even against what you're already paying for the room, and the restaurants in the village itself are just as good for considerably less.