Grupotel Los Príncipes & Spa

Playa de Muro, Mallorca · heritage

Grupotel Los Príncipes & Spa

THE VIBE

221 rooms along the Playa de Muro strip — buffet with live cooking, a bistro facing the sea and a spa section reserved for guests aged 16 and over.

THE BACKSTORY

Grupotel was founded in 1968 by Miguel Ramis Martorell and is today a joint venture with TUI, which has held a 50 per cent stake since 1999. Los Príncipes — registered as H-PM-2077 — is located at C/ Galió 31 in Playa de Muro and is one of the chain's beachfront anchors on northern Mallorca. The exact opening year of the current property has not been disclosed by the chain.

WHY NOW

May and early June offer Alcúdia Bay without the August crowds: S'Albufera nature reserve's birds are still migrating, sea temperature exceeds 20 degrees and the pool terrace is not overbooked. Book directly via grupotel.com to secure a balcony with a lateral bay view.

THE ROOM

The Double Room with Side Sea View category provides a balcony with a lateral bay view; exact floor placement is confirmed at check-in. Garden rooms are quieter but lack the bay line.

WELLNESS

The water-jet circuit, sauna, laconium and ice fountain are included at no extra cost for guests aged 16 and over. The massage cabin and the signature algae and Ayurveda treatments are booked and charged separately — ask at reception about availability on arrival, as capacity is limited during high season.

THE TABLE

À la carte lunch with Alcúdia Bay as backdrop — Bistro (in-house). The hotel's unnamed bistro serves à la carte dishes with sea views, open 10:00–17:00 (lunch 12:30–16:00). More focused than the buffet restaurant's show-cooking format and better suited to a relaxed start to the evening.

THE SERVICE

The spa department — open exclusively to guests aged 16 and over — includes a water-jet circuit, sauna, laconium, sensation shower and ice fountain. Massages and algae and Ayurveda treatments are booked separately at an additional charge.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Direct access to Playa de Muro beach from the hotel's garden. Port d'Alcúdia's marina and restaurants are approximately 3 km north along the coastal road. S'Albufera nature reserve begins south of the hotel. Alcúdia old town with its Tuesday and Sunday market is reachable in approximately 6 km via MA-3470.

HONEST CAVEAT

The hotel is not adults-only: a children's pool, playground and kids' club (from age 4) are on site. The buffet restaurant closes at 20:30 during low season — plan the evening meal in good time.

THE VERDICT

Grupotel Los Príncipes is a well-organised beachfront hotel with a genuinely strong spa offer — a water-jet circuit, laconium and ice fountain at no extra cost is unusual in the four-star segment. The family-friendliness (kids' club, children's pool) is real but not the primary proposition. The right choice for guests combining beach and recovery who do not require a strictly adult environment.

THE FULL PICTURE

You don’t arrive here by accident. The taxi turns off the main Playa de Muro artery, with its primary-colored signage and parade of family resorts, and the decibel level drops. A sense of deliberate quiet descends as you pull into Los Príncipes. This isn’t the Mallorca of cliff-diving influencers or yacht parties in Port d'Andratx; this is an engineered sanctuary for people who have graduated from all that. They’ve come for the quiet, for the therapeutic boredom of watching the tide recede across the Bay of Alcúdia, and for a spa that changes everything. The first act upon entering your room is the same for everyone: slide open the glass doors to the balcony, step into the wash of salt-laced air, and feel the nervous system downshift. The view is an immense canvas of blue, a long, pale ribbon of sand stretching for kilometres. You have arrived.

By the second morning, a rhythm establishes itself. The day is governed not by a schedule but by the sun’s arc. After a coffee on the terrace, watching the groundskeepers tend to the gardens, the fundamental question presents itself: the manicured lawn surrounding the chlorine-blue pool, or the direct beach access onto the fine, talcum-powder sand? The tribe here is self-selecting. They are German architects and British solicitors, people who spend their working lives in high-stakes negotiations and have come here precisely to make none. They carry paperbacks, not laptops, to their sun loungers. Conversation is muted, a low hum against the soundtrack of lapping waves. They know you could orchestrate a pilgrimage for the tasting menu at Andreu Genestra’s country estate or chase down the fabled *frito mallorquin* from the Solivellas sisters at Ca Na Toneta, but the thought alone feels exhausting. The greatest luxury here is the permission to do nothing at all.

This commitment to ease, however, requires a certain discernment, particularly at dinner. The main buffet restaurant is a theatre of abundance, a sprawling affair of show-cooking stations and stainless-steel displays. Planchas sizzle, chefs perform with practiced flair, and the energy can feel overwhelming, a sensory assault after a day spent in quiet contemplation. It serves its purpose, but it is not the reason one stays here. The connoisseur’s choice, the one you’ll make every night after the first, is the smaller sea-view bistro. Here, the menu is more focused, the tables are draped in white linen, and the only spectacle is the panorama of Alcúdia Bay as the last light fades. Securing a table on the terrace for Mediterranean plates as the sky bruises to indigo feels less like a meal and more like the evening’s main event.

The hotel’s entire philosophy, its true center of gravity, is found in the spa. And here lies the honest caveat that defines the experience: this is also a family hotel, and the spa is where the noise stops, a hydrotherapy zone kept as a temple of quiet. To descend into its hushed, humid air is to enter another state. You move through the circuit: from the body-temperature indoor pool to the sharp, cleansing needles of the sensation showers, from the dry heat of the sauna to the muscle-unclenching force of the hot tub jets. The silence is profound, broken only by water and breath. In peak season, when the beaches outside are a cacophony of shrieks and games, this world offers a genuine escape, a pocket of peace that is worth the price of admission alone.

The property’s location is a strategic choice on the quieter southern reach of the beach. A long walk north brings you to the marina and restaurants of Port d'Alcúdia, but the more compelling walk is south, where the manicured resort landscape gives way to the wild, reedy expanse of the S'Albufera wetland nature reserve. The contrast is stark: the contained, curated nature of the hotel gardens against the untamed, sprawling ecology of the park. It’s a reminder that you are on the edge of something real, a buffer zone between the machinery of tourism and the island’s raw landscape. As you pack to leave, the feeling isn’t the frantic regret of a holiday cut short. It’s a sense of deep restoration, of a system reset. You didn’t conquer Mallorca. You didn’t tick off a list. You simply came to this quiet enclave, breathed in the salt air, and let the silence do its work.

FACTS

FAQ

When is the best time to visit?

May and early June offer Alcúdia Bay without the August crowds: S'Albufera nature reserve's birds are still migrating, sea temperature exceeds 20 degrees and the pool terrace is not overbooked. Book directly via grupotel.com to secure a balcony with a lateral bay view.

Anything I should know before booking?

The hotel is not adults-only: a children's pool, playground and kids' club (from age 4) are on site. The buffet restaurant closes at 20:30 during low season — plan the evening meal in good time.

What is the neighbourhood like around Grupotel Los Príncipes & Spa?

Direct access to Playa de Muro beach from the hotel's garden. Port d'Alcúdia's marina and restaurants are approximately 3 km north along the coastal road. S'Albufera nature reserve begins south of the hotel. Alcúdia old town with its Tuesday and Sunday market is reachable in approximately 6 km via MA-3470.

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