Castell Sol

We occupied apartment 308. If you want to spend a quiet holiday, go your way! Castellsol is right next to a resort under construction! The noise of work begins at 8 a.m. In addition, the Palladium, a gigantic hotel nearby, plays very loud music during the day. No umbrellas around the pool No air conditioning but 2 fans. The wifi is malfunctioning. Intermittently. If your neighbors smoke on their terrace while having breakfast, you will have the pleasure of sharing the smells of cigarettes in your room; a real happiness! Only positive: a small terrace on the roof from where you can see the sea while having an aperitif but ... standing only! In short, we do not recommend.

We were on a fairly tight budget but liked the look of the area of Arenal D’en Castell so gave these apartments a try. After a week here, we are having an amazing time. Although the apartments are full, it is never crowded by the pool or noisy. Town and beach are easily walkable although the whole area is very hilly. Alexandra, the owner is just lovely and so helpful. The main selling point for us though is the view from our apartment. We were lucky enough to have one with two balconies, one that faces the pool and is always in the sunshine, and one in the shade that faces the beach and sea. It’s spectacular! Having been to Moraira on mainland Spain a couple of years ago, and found everything so expensive, we weren’t sure what we would be able to afford to do in Menorca but buses are very reasonable here. There is a bus to Mahon, and also to Fornells and Es Mercadal. We had an amazing evening in Es Mercadal where there is a weekly (Thursday) night market with bands playing etc and really interesting locally made products for sale. Also worth a walk from Arenal was over to the adjacent tiny fishing village. My two kids had an amazing time climbing the rocks and looking in all the rock pools. There’s also a diving board set up to go into the sea there but we weren’t quite brave enough to give that a go! All in all we are in love with Menorca and have managed so much on a very tight budget. The apartments would be spectacular with a bit of updating but then they would become too popular and expensive so I’d rather have them just the way they are. The only thing that would be nice would be if the bar below opened for a bit longer and had a bit more life in the evenings eg. ran some events like the other bars in town.

We arrived late on a Friday but there was a note directing us to our apartment. We had a lovely sea view and whilst you could argue that the apartment could do with updating everything was clean and with everything you needed for your stay. On meeting Alexandra the next morning we were given a very warm welcome and nothing was too much trouble. A short walk took you down hill to the beach and there were bars and restaurants within easy walkable reach. We had a late flight home but Alexandra managed to organise us a late checkout (small additional cost understandably) and made a point of saying goodbye to us as we were leaving. We will definitely return.