Mallorca Recce Booked!

[AIDY]

As others have said its about one hour to the north of the island. Our marina is in the manacor area. Palma park n fly service is good. Out of the airport and straight on to a minibus and in your own car within 10 mins. You can wait along time to pick up a rental car. We live about 40 mins away from Luton and Birmingham. We estimate about 5 and half hours front door to boat.

 

[PEJ]

I hope these pics are useful.
.

Mike, the photos are great! Thank you so much for posting them.

Alcudia and the marina certainly look nice in photos.

We are booked in to the hotel above for the Saturday night.

 

[PEJ]

. The perfect marina doesn't exist as far as I can see, they're either highly priced, miles from anywhere, too windy (you put me off Denia!), no winter flights (Amlafi Coast, Croatia, Carloforte etc.) or very difficult to find a long term berth without leasing (South of France), so some compromise is inevitable. I do fancy a change though and would like to reduce my berthing costs, I'm going to take another look at Alcudia next week.

Very good point, well made.

I guess like boats, you can never get 100% what you want so you have get most of the boxes ticked and be able to live with the un-ticked boxes.

Please report back your thoughts on Alcudia when you have been.

 

[Steruth1]

I am also booked for the last week in May to go and have a look, my first choice is Cala D'or as this seemed the ideal Marina for quick trips out and having good bars/restaurants etc.
The 50 min drive is a draw back, but this offsets the boat time to the calas I suppose?

Palma was the other option but on previous threads it seemed the consensus was its noisey and very rolley which swmbo would not be happy about.
I think as said before the main thing is to get your boat over there, and then move it if your not happy.

 

[petem]

Worth noting that the restaurants in Portals are open all year but in addition to the €35,000 mooring fee an English brekky is c. £10 unless you can be arsed to walk up the hill a bit (which I couldn't).

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Flights would be an issue for me over the winter, I try to visit the boat every 4 to 6 weeks for a long weekend, carry out some maintenance tasks and chill.

Well its not actually true that there are no winter flights to Carloforte. Easyjet flies to Cagliari all year round from Stansted although there is reduced frequency during the winter. The big problem with CF is not the flights but what happens after you step out of Cagliari airport because then there is a 1 - 1.5hr taxi ride to one of two ferry ports, Portovesme or Calasetta and a 30-40 min ferry ride and then sometimes you have to wait upto 1 hour for a ferry if you time it wrong. So for us living in Buckinghamshire, it is a 9hr door to door trip and sometimes longer if the flight is delayed or we just miss a ferry which makes CF a non starter for long weekend trips. The minimum period we go for is 5 days

Having said that, CF is an excellent and cheap winter berthing option because obviously you won't be visiting your boat much if at all and there is an excellent maintenance yard just across the water in S Antioco

FWIW there are winter flights to Croatia too but only to Dubrovnik from where you can get to the ACI Dubrovnik marina and Porto Montenegro

Leaving aside the comments about windier conditions, we liked Alcudia a lot and if it offers cheaper berthing than Portals, its certainly worth looking at particularly as it opens up a different cruising ground too not forgetting that Menorca is only 40 odd miles away across the water

 

[MikeA]

Thanks for that info Mike. I've also been looking at purchasing a lease, I'll create a separate thread for that as it's an area I've no knowledge of but have numerous questions.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Thanks for that info Mike. I've also been looking at purchasing a lease, I'll create a separate thread for that as it's an area I've no knowledge of but have numerous questions.

I'm possibly interested in that subject too so I look forward to your thread

 

[Hurricane]

Leaving aside the comments about windier conditions, we liked Alcudia a lot and if it offers cheaper berthing than Portals, its certainly worth looking at particularly as it opens up a different cruising ground too not forgetting that Menorca is only 40 odd miles away across the water

I posted this thread a few years ago - mini cruise round Menorca from Alcudia
Might be interesting to those who haven't seen it.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?363830

EDIT
And I'd forgotten - this one on cruising round Alcudia itself.
Note - we only visit these places from mainland Spain and those who are long term berthed in Mallorca might have other views.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?364822

 

[jrudge]

I am also booked for the last week in May to go and have a look, my first choice is Cala D'or as this seemed the ideal Marina for quick trips out and having good bars/restaurants etc.
The 50 min drive is a draw back, but this offsets the boat time to the calas I suppose?

Palma was the other option but on previous threads it seemed the consensus was its noisey and very rolley which swmbo would not be happy about.
I think as said before the main thing is to get your boat over there, and then move it if your not happy.

Cala Dor is lovely - it is however expensive.

Palma - we had nil roll - we were at the back of Club De Mar. The more exposed you are there you can get rolling, and I had in Club Nautico .

Just look at the berth maps - but most of Club de Mar is sheltered.

 

[MikeA]

I posted this thread a few years ago - mini cruise round Menorca from Alcudia
Might be interesting to those who haven't seen it.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?363830

Ah yes, it was that thread and a few of the other one's from the regular med posters that convinced me a boat in the med was a great idea! No regrets though, money disappears like water but you can't put a price on memories as they say...

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

No regrets though, money disappears like water but you can't put a price on memories as they say...

Doesn't it just! The big problem is that, unless you're Hurricane who seems to have time and skills to work on his own boat, you're paying somebody else continuously to do jobs that you might have done yourself if the boat was in the UK. When I look at the costs of my Med boating every year, inevitably the biggest cost is maintenance often by a long way

 

[AIDY]

I posted this thread a few years ago - mini cruise round Menorca from Alcudia
Might be interesting to those who haven't seen it.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...tp://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?364822

Nice report... Got your bike racked yet ? Could be wet tomorrow.

 

[Hurricane]

Nice report... Got your bike racked yet ? Could be wet tomorrow.

Yep - we are watching the weather closely.
Both for the race and our return trip.
The plan now is to return to Sant Carles soon after the race.
Not much very bad weather about but enough for some concern.
There is a small window for us with wind and swell from behind - so could be exciting.
Full cloud cover so we really need to be back at dusk to avoid the pot markers at the entrance to the delta.
OpenCPN reported a total distance of 143 miles on the way out.
Probably full cruising speed all the way back - 5 or 6 hours - so, no time for pootling on this passage.
Maybe dinner in the bar at Sant Carles on Sunday evening.

 

[AIDY]

Yep - we are watching the weather closely.
Both for the race and our return trip.
The plan now is to return to Sant Carles soon after the race.
Not much very bad weather about but enough for some concern.
There is a small window for us with wind and swell from behind - so could be exciting.
Full cloud cover so we really need to be back at dusk to avoid the pot markers at the entrance to the delta.
OpenCPN reported a total distance of 143 miles on the way out.
Probably full cruising speed all the way back - 5 or 6 hours - so, no time for pootling on this passage.
Maybe dinner in the bar at Sant Carles on Sunday evening.

Gook luck to your son ? tomorrow

Thought you might be hanging around as part of your summer cruise. Could be a bit windy Sunday.

Safe passage back to the mainland.

 

[AIDY]

Not so sunny Alcudia this morning... One or two umbrellas up for the start of the half ironman.

 

[freddy the frog]

Not so sunny Alcudia this morning... One or two umbrellas up for the start of the half ironman.

Just back from Cala,d,or yesterday short break stayed in hotel not far from the marina, wow lovely marina and i see they are putting in more berths, fantastic yacht club cracking restaurants and great views accross the marina.

Did some research on berthing my 37ft boat not cheap £8,000 anual berth, spent few hours each day walking and observing what goes on, first thing i noticed is to keep the boat looking sharp you have got to have a regular cleaner on board polishing etc as that what was the most activity i saw on board , not many owners around maybe early in season at the moment, 50mins from the airport cheap flights from ryanair into bournemouth, food for thought

 

[petem]

Thanks, interesting summary. People say cala d'or is dead in the winter. Is there really no restaurants ipen? Does the same apply to Alcudia?

 

[CLOUD9]

Thanks, interesting summary. People say cala d'or is dead in the winter. Is there really no restaurants ipen? Does the same apply to Alcudia?

We have just returned from our third visit to Cala d'Or in our first season at the marina, so have now seen it in late February late March and early May.
In February the place is deserted. The town itself is practically shut down and you realise that it only really functions for the tourists. (We understand that nearby Portopetro has more year round local inhabitants). However, even then there were two decent restaurants open on the marina and the Spar shop in town, which was all I needed!
In March things were starting to wake up a little, a few more shops open, but still dead by all standards.
The last two weeks have seen a significant step up in activity. It appears that there is a magic wand waved over the place on 1st May. All the marina restaurants are open and most in town. But Freddy is right.... we did expect a lot more activity on the boats themselves, but there are still not many owners there! We were told that the weather was not as good as usual for early May, which makes it even more surprising that not more owners had booked to come out at this time of year. For us an extended season is all part of the reason we are there.
Freddy, FWIW...So far we couldn't be happier with our choice of Cala d'Or for our first Med season.

 

[Hurricane]

We have just returned from our third visit to Cala d'Or in our first season at the marina, so have now seen it in late February late March and early May.
In February the place is deserted. The town itself is practically shut down and you realise that it only really functions for the tourists. (We understand that nearby Portopetro has more year round local inhabitants). However, even then there were two decent restaurants open on the marina and the Spar shop in town, which was all I needed!
In March things were starting to wake up a little, a few more shops open, but still dead by all standards.
The last two weeks have seen a significant step up in activity. It appears that there is a magic wand waved over the place on 1st May. All the marina restaurants are open and most in town. But Freddy is right.... we did expect a lot more activity on the boats themselves, but there are still not many owners there! We were told that the weather was not as good as usual for early May, which makes it even more surprising that not more owners had booked to come out at this time of year. For us an extended season is all part of the reason we are there.
Freddy, FWIW...So far we couldn't be happier with our choice of Cala d'Or for our first Med season.

Did you get the heavy rain that we had in the north last weekend?

Sorry we didn't pop in - we had to get back and there was a 6 hour window on Sunday evening - so we "hammered it" home - Alcudia to Sant Carles in a tad over 5 hours.
Opened her up to WOT in the last mile - 32.4 knots (with all our clobber on board) - fantastic for a boat in her 9th season.