The St. Regis Mardavall Mallorca Resort

As a perfectionist and a well experienced luxury traveller its hard to impress me in a positive way. This hotel did. I stayed here with my husband for the first time in February 2018 which turned out not to be not the best experience as the hotel was undergoing extensive refurbishment and all we were looking for was a well deserved 48h break with complete silence and a little sun - and not the sound of a jack hammer. But as I find that service of a true luxury hotel can sometimes be measured by the level of dedication they offer if dealing with a complaint, I can say that this hotel has lived up to this expectation above and beyond. Whilst a gesture of flowers or extra glass of champagne in this case would not have justified their default, I was surprised to receive a complementary 2 night voucher in a Junior suite with sea view, which I kept for more than a year. And yes, although the first bad experience does not leverage a relived moment, I went this year - although sadly without my other half - and cannot praise the hotel enough. Now wonderfully refurbished with a divine garden (this hotel should rather be visited in the warmer month to fully enjoy the garden and the lounge beds) and a truly exceptional service. St Regis at its best! The food in the restaurant was exceptionally good and the atmosphere simply delightful. I can also highly recommend the spa which offers fantastic facials. Thank you Mr Fromm for making this possible!

It always pains me to write a very negative review, but I have no other choice in this stay. Certain elements of the bad experience were beyond the control of the St. Regis, but the manner in which they handled what is now my worst Marriott stay (congrats Sheraton on the Park in Sydney.. you???re now #2!) is what has led me to write this review. I proactively contacted the ???butler team??? several weeks before my visit to ask to please be placed in a room as quiet as possible on the highest floor possible, furthest away from lifts, and in the quietest part of the resort, as I am sensitive to noise and really needed time to do a "working vacation". The good: I had booked a king ocean view room. I was upgraded to a Junior Suite ocean view, which was a very nice gesture. The room was on the 5th floor (with a floor above me). The bad: Room not ready at check-in even though I had repeatedly emailed saying I really needed to work on a book chapter I???m writing and really wanted to be able to check in at 1:30 PM. No one contacted me about the room for a few hours as I sat outside waiting, and I finally went to the front desk to inquire. Magically, the room was ready ???just at that moment.??? The room was fine???nothing special considering it???s a St.R property. The problem I had in the room was that there were loud, screaming, stomping children above me. There were also screaming and stomping children throughout the floor where I was placed. When I went back down to the lobby and asked the ???concierge guy??? if I had been given the best room available, he said ???You should be happy. We gave you a triple upgrade! We don???t even have to do that!??? FACT: I was not given a ???triple upgrade.??? I booked and paid for an ocean view room that was one category below what I was actually given as a Titanium Elite member. The concierge wouldn???t take no for an answer, and he began ???mansplaining??? their room categories to me. Why not just try to help the customer? The ugly: The property is full of smokers. I realize that smoking is part of the culture in Spain, but The St. Regis portrays itself as a smoke-free resort by noting multiple times on the Marriott website that the rooms are smoke free. I thought being a category 8 luxury property it would be smoke-free place. Literally EVERY common area outside (including the pool???. Imagine people blowing cancer-causing cigarette smoke in your face by the pool (!!)) is absolutely infested with smokers. It???s a smokers??? paradise. The resort might as well be in Las Vegas. I have a severe allergy to cigarette smoke. I thought I could possibly escape it, but you can???t even have lunch without people blowing carcinogenic smoke in your face. After a few hours of being miserable and hating that I had booked this ???resort,??? and being told I "should be happy" with my loud room surrounded by screaming children, I went downstairs to notify the staff that I was leaving. No one made any attempt to get me to stay. No offer of a new room, no apology, no ???sorry you don???t like the smoke.. tough luck..??? no Marriott Bonvoy points, no nothing. Zip. Absolutely nothing. All that the gentleman who checked me out wanted to do was make sure I paid for the FORTY FIVE (45) euro hamburger (which was awful and consisted of tasteless fake ???wagyu???) that I had at lunch before my asthmatic allergic spell caused by the chain smokers all over the resort. He was literally *only* concerned with me settling my bill when I had only been at this dreaded resort for five hours. I had the staff call me a cab, and I was off to the airport and rebooked myself last-minute to London where I knew I could find a quiet property to focus on the quiet working vacation I needed. The really ugly: I sent an email to the General Manager detailing all my issues. The GM farmed my email off to a ???rooms supervisor??? who wrote me one of the worst, coldest, completely lacking in customer service responses I???ve ever seen. They promised to refund me for my stay. As of today (72 hours later), I???ve received no phone call (I gave the GM and the staff my mobile # and said ???please call me???), no offer of any compensation, no refund of any sort (I???m also out $450 USD for the last-minute plane ticket out of Palma de Mallorca, and I???m out $100+ in asthma/allergy meds I needed to pick up after being exposed to so many smokers), and absolutely NOTHING except a short, curt, rude email from someone who I never interacted with at any point. For the prices this ???resort??? charges, they need to really seriously rethink some things. I understand if they want to cater to cancer-spewing people who love to smoke until they can???t breathe???but this should be CLEARLY stated in the reservation details. Each balcony has a giant ashtray on it! You can smoke on your balcony and blow the smoke into the rooms above and next to yours. This is a problem, as much of the world agrees (and science agrees) that cigarette smoke is deadly. Other issues of note: my room never got below 72F (22C) after 5 hours of running the A/C on ???high.??? If a cool room is of importance to you, beware. Also, I am fully aware that not every day in a resort is likely to be overrun with children. So I may have picked literally the worst day/weekend on earth to come. But I???ll never have a chance to test this theory again, as I will never spend a ???month??? at this ???resort??? in five hours ever again.