Day 1 - Mallorca

With any new stay, it's a must to explore and find all the shortcuts or nooks and crannies in the hotel but before that, we needed to have the most important meal of the day, and the most important factor in Louis' Hotel Ranking scheme - breakfast. Ranked above the shower, the breakfast can make or break (lol) the experience at the hotel, and ultimately gives the most weight when scoring the hotel out of 10.

HM Ayron did not disappoint and provided a buffet that satisfied Louis. However, after our lovely breakfast, Anna (and the baby) needed a nap. So after a quick exploring walk around the hotel, it was nap time, I suppose we did travel all night.

It was a bit windy today despite a healthy sun so the rooftop pool would have blown you off the edge. Anna was adamant for a swim so instead we headed to level -1 for the spa and indoor pool with sauna, where we chilled out until it was about lunchtime.

When we left the hotel, even at ground level the wind would have cut you in two, not unlike the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. We soldiered on and dandered around the promenade where we were staying. As normal on our travels, it was a bank holiday so only the really keen places were open and most of the surrondings looked like a ghost town from a Call of Duty map.

Normally, we would venture into the streets behind the promenade for the cheaper and more local food but as they were closed, we had to make do with the tourist traps. We didn't spend too much time in our first choice restuarant when the waiter actually broke into this cockney accent and explained that a place down the road does the best vegatarian paella that we would probably prefer, just tell them Stephen sent you...

Pazo de Pulpo was great to be fair but we got no preferential treatment due to our newly formed relationship with Stephen. After lunch, we needed to find a shop to get a hairbrush, especially after our windy walk. A successful find, we returned to the hotel to chill until the evening.

Like earlier, only the really keen places were open around our hotel but we came across Tapas y mas, which only reopened a few days ago after refurbishment. It was only us and another table but they did exactly what we wanted, a typical spanish tapas menu, and was very good!

Anna (sorry, the baby) needed chocolate on the way home and the only place open was a corner supermarket. Unfortunately, the owner said he had very little stock due to the bank holiday and being closed during off season. We got a packet of maltesers but in hindsight, that's probably been sitting there since last September.

There was no Below Deck on the TV tonight so we sat in the lobby for a glass of wine and a cup of tea, listening to a spanish singer, who actually was really good and put 110% into her performance for 4 or 5 eldery couples who were half asleep anyway. Hope the money was worth it!