Trip to watch Real Mallorca v Espanyol

[SimonButlerPhotography]

On Sunday Jonny and I took a trip to Palma to watch the Real Mallorca v Espanyol football match, the opening fixture for Mallorca in the 2011-12 La Liga season. It was a fantastic experience, especially as we got to sit in amongst a whole load of locals - I think Jonny must've heard every Mallorcan swear word going as they were getting uptight with the ref, the linesman and the Mallorcan number 8, Emilio Nsue, who missed quite a few sitters!

We travelled with No Frills Excursions, booked via our hotel the Puerto Azul, after I saw a flyer advertising it. It was quite expensive - €71 for me and him but this did include return coach travel from our hotel to the stadium and a rep. The rep was pretty useless as it was obvious from the way he talked to us on the coach that he hated football and didn't really want to be there. he also assumed that we didn't want to be there either, so was pretty sarcastic about the football, even though the coach was full of football fans out for a good game.

I was even more upset with the rep when he handed me our tickets - the face value of the two tickets was only €32 meaning that I was paying almost €40 for the coach travel and rep. But that wasn't the worst, the two tickets were not for seats next to each other. they were 4 rows apart. Thankfully the ground was only half-full and we turned this to our advantage - we sat in two unoccupied seats close to the half-way line hoping that no one would claim them. And amazingly no one did, even though all the seats around us were taken by locals who all seemed to know each other.

The seats we chose were pretty perfect and gave us a great view.

The match wasn't a classic with Mallorca winning a scrappy, tight game 1-0. But the atmosphere and banter of the locals around us made for a really memorable experience.

Apparently last year Mallorca's corresponding opening fixture was against Real Madrid. No Frills took 11 coach loads of tourists to that game. They only took 3 coaches to the game we went to.

So overall it was a great experience and one I would love to repeat. I think next time I wouldn't bother with No Frills and make my own way there.

As you will expect I took a whole load of photos and here is a selection:

The main cheerleader for RCD Mallorca!



Our view of the stadium (click to see it larger):



The locals enjoying a half-time chat:


The locals celebrating the Mallorca goal:

 

[cumberland8]

Excellent coverage ,will defiantly take the Cumberlands in Sep, thanks.

 

[cherylbb]

Thanks Simon, good to have info about no frills, sounds better to be independent if poss. May have to look into this. Love the pics, especially the stadium.

 

[sws97sdg]

Yes the stadium looks fantastic, I have always wanted to go, I picked the wrong weekend this time, no La Liga this weekend, I think someone posted details of how to get to the stadium before, might look them out.

 

[No Frills Excursions]

Dear Simon

I am sorry to hear that you were unhappy with the tour that you booked with us last Sunday.
Please be assured that we make great efforts to ensure all clients have a great time on our tours but in this case maybe we have fallen short.
We are a small local company and as I am sure you are aware a report like this is worrying to us as it can seriously affect our reputation which as you can imagine we have spent much time and effort in developing.

we will try and address the issues that you have highlighted in your comments.

1.The guide on your tour was Michael, Michael is one of our experienced guides and I am sorry to hear that you think he is useless. Michael has worked for the company for 7 years and he has lived in mallorca for many years. Michael usually guides our cultural and sightseeing tours and although I agree he may not be a football fan we think he is a very good guide.
We have spoken to Michael and asked him what information and procedure he used when he guided the tour on Sunday. Michael says the he guided the tour in the normal way picking up our clients in an efficient and punctual manner and then proceeded to the stadium.
As most of the clients were football fans he decided that a sightseeing tour was not appropriate and played music on the way to the football ground after his general information informing the clients of the excursion itinerary and timings.

We organise the football trip about 3 times a year, this means that we do not have a dedicated guide who has the knowledge to give an indepth tour of the Mallorca stadium or its history. This means that we do not sell the tour in that way.

2. match tickets were distributed on the coach to our clients, each packet was numbered with the hotel room and number and given to the party.
The tickets were purchased from real Mallorca that morning and driven to Our main office where they were organized and labeled. Our purchase of the ticket is a block booking and all our clients sit together in the same Area. This is required as many of the seats in that area are season ticket holders and real mallorca prefer it if our clients are in the same area.
We organise that Adults and children sit together, although in your case we have made an error and we apologise for that. But in saying this all our clients are in the same block and all are families and the solution would have been easily rectified if we had known about it.
In your case you decided to sit where you wanted, Many people do this and although it is not recommended it is normal as that is the way it is in Mallorca.

3.The price for the tour was 49€ for adults and 22€ for kids, the face value of the tickets was 25 euro for the adult and 9 euros for the child. Our transport cost is 12 euros and this leaves us 12€ for promotion /office costs, paying the guide and commission to the point of sale.

If you were to take the local bus to palma we agree that this is not difficult and many people do this. This bus of course does not go to the stadium, you have to wait and take another line to the area of the stadium once you arrive to palma. This is fine, but if the match is a late match like this one at the weekend the last bus leaves palma aroud 9pm meaning you will miss the service to return home.

A taxi from Palma to Puerto pollensa will cost you between 70-90 euros depending on the time and the area of palma you are in.

The point is we offer an efficient and direct service, with no hassle and it is well organized door to door. We charge for this but we in no way think this at all excessive.

We could of course ask real mallorca to remove the price from the ticket when they print them. But we feel there is no need as we think our price is reasonable.

We notice from your photography website below that your prices for a days work start from 650 pounds sterling to 1800 pounds.

Weddings - Sheffield Wedding & Event Photography - Simon Butler Photography | SmugMug

To be honest, that to us sounds like a lot of money for 1 days work, but we have to admit we have no experience in this area so we are sure you will agree we are wrong.

Our average profit on a football ticket is about 5€

we can only think that you were enraged by the fact that the price was on the ticket and you felt we were profiteering from you, please let me assure you that this is not the case and we are an honest and upstanding company and always do our best to provide a good service to our clients.

As a gesture of goodwill we would like to invite you on our Rural Mallorca tour when you are next here in mallorca, this may give you a more of general view of our company and the type of experience we offer to our clients.

Kind regards
The No frills Team

 

[lollipop]

Simon, I can recommendthe rural mallorca tour. It was good fun and very informative. I hope you take them up on their offer.

 

[SimonButlerPhotography]

Dear Simon

I am sorry to hear that you were unhappy with the tour that you booked with us last Sunday.
Please be assured that we make great efforts to ensure all clients have a great time on our tours but in this case maybe we have fallen short.
We are a small local company and as I am sure you are aware a report like this is worrying to us as it can seriously affect our reputation which as you can imagine we have spent much time and effort in developing.

we will try and address the issues that you have highlighted in your comments.

1.The guide on your tour was Michael, Michael is one of our experienced guides and I am sorry to hear that you think he is useless. Michael has worked for the company for 7 years and he has lived in mallorca for many years. Michael usually guides our cultural and sightseeing tours and although I agree he may not be a football fan we think he is a very good guide.
We have spoken to Michael and asked him what information and procedure he used when he guided the tour on Sunday. Michael says the he guided the tour in the normal way picking up our clients in an efficient and punctual manner and then proceeded to the stadium.
As most of the clients were football fans he decided that a sightseeing tour was not appropriate and played music on the way to the football ground after his general information informing the clients of the excursion itinerary and timings.

We organise the football trip about 3 times a year, this means that we do not have a dedicated guide who has the knowledge to give an indepth tour of the Mallorca stadium or its history. This means that we do not sell the tour in that way.

2. match tickets were distributed on the coach to our clients, each packet was numbered with the hotel room and number and given to the party.
The tickets were purchased from real Mallorca that morning and driven to Our main office where they were organized and labeled. Our purchase of the ticket is a block booking and all our clients sit together in the same Area. This is required as many of the seats in that area are season ticket holders and real mallorca prefer it if our clients are in the same area.
We organise that Adults and children sit together, although in your case we have made an error and we apologise for that. But in saying this all our clients are in the same block and all are families and the solution would have been easily rectified if we had known about it.
In your case you decided to sit where you wanted, Many people do this and although it is not recommended it is normal as that is the way it is in Mallorca.

3.The price for the tour was 49€ for adults and 22€ for kids, the face value of the tickets was 25 euro for the adult and 9 euros for the child. Our transport cost is 12 euros and this leaves us 12€ for promotion /office costs, paying the guide and commission to the point of sale.

If you were to take the local bus to palma we agree that this is not difficult and many people do this. This bus of course does not go to the stadium, you have to wait and take another line to the area of the stadium once you arrive to palma. This is fine, but if the match is a late match like this one at the weekend the last bus leaves palma aroud 9pm meaning you will miss the service to return home.

A taxi from Palma to Puerto pollensa will cost you between 70-90 euros depending on the time and the area of palma you are in.

The point is we offer an efficient and direct service, with no hassle and it is well organized door to door. We charge for this but we in no way think this at all excessive.

We could of course ask real mallorca to remove the price from the ticket when they print them. But we feel there is no need as we think our price is reasonable.

We notice from your photography website below that your prices for a days work start from 650 pounds sterling to 1800 pounds.

Weddings - Sheffield Wedding & Event Photography - Simon Butler Photography | SmugMug

To be honest, that to us sounds like a lot of money for 1 days work, but we have to admit we have no experience in this area so we are sure you will agree we are wrong.

Our average profit on a football ticket is about 5€

we can only think that you were enraged by the fact that the price was on the ticket and you felt we were profiteering from you, please let me assure you that this is not the case and we are an honest and upstanding company and always do our best to provide a good service to our clients.

As a gesture of goodwill we would like to invite you on our Rural Mallorca tour when you are next here in mallorca, this may give you a more of general view of our company and the type of experience we offer to our clients.

Kind regards
The No frills Team

Hi No Frills

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my concerns.

On reflection I think I was wrong to complain about the price and for that I apologise. When you break down the costs I agree that your price was good value. By the way a wedding photographer works for more than one day on a wedding but I take your point.

But I stand by my criticism of Michael. A minute or so after he gave us our tickets I spotted that our seats were in different rows, 4 rows apart. I queried this with him and he quickly dismissed it and said that I shouldn't worry about it as this was standard practice in Mallorca - apparently they always print the wrong seat number on Children's tickets and my son's seat would actually be next to mine despite what it said on the ticket.

I wasn't happy with how quickly he dismissed my problem. And was also concerned because other families on the coach seemed be given tickets that meant they would be sitting apart as well. He brushed off one couple who had odd numbered seats by saying that the seats are only odd numbered so they would be sitting next to each other. All of the seats I saw in the block we were in had both odd and even numbered seats so I am not sure what he said would have turned out to be true.

So when we arrived I queried our seats again with Michael and one of his colleagues who had arrived on another of the coaches. The other rep realised straight away that the seat / row numbers on my sons seat were the right numbers and that we were going to be 4 rows apart. He came up with the idea of just sitting where ever there were empty seats as the ground would only be 1/2 full (Michael had indicated earlier on the bus that 20,000 were expected in a 25,000 capacity stadium, hence my concern). This turned out to be OK in the end but would have been a problem if the game had been against say Real Madrid or Barcelona when I am sure the stadium would have been full.

But anyway, I am happy to accept your apology and also accept that this was a one off mistake when ordering the tickets.

Your Rural Mallorca tour looks lovely on your website (and the flickr photos look great too!) and just my kind of thing so I would also be happy to accept your offer of a free place on the tour the next time I'm in Mallorca.

 

[PP_Kev]

I have always wanted to watch Real Mallorca play too, I have visited the Stadium shop a couple of times, but never seen a game. Is it easy enough to get tickets to most games (excluding Barca & Madrid)? I always have access to a car, so also would like to know how easy it is to park on Match days? Or how close you can get to the ground?

 

[No Frills Excursions]

Tickets for Real mallorca

Hi Kev,
It is not that difficult to drive down if that is what you want to do.
Tickets
The ticket desk is open usually between 09:00 and 14:00 and in the evening between 16:30 and 18:30 the days before the match and up until the match on the day.

The ticket desk is beside the car park and is pretty easy to find.

Parking is ample but be prepared for the usual jam as at any football match.

The directions are pretty easy as well, follow the motorway to Palma, take the exit to Andratx and the exit for the iberostar stadium is signposted.

Unless it is a big game tickets are not in high demand.

Enjoy the match the next time you go
From all at No frills excursions

 

[jiggggy]

Great wedding site Simon!

 

[SimonButlerPhotography]

Thanks jiggggy!

 

[cumberland8]

Fair comments on both sides, hoping to see a match myself.

 

[beardedlady]

Hi, im on holiday in Pollensa tom and was looking for details in gettin too the match on Sunday, Mallorca v Malaga. costs and if any football buses leave from Pollensa. Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[Sparky]

Hi Bearededlady try here :- Majorca tours- Excursions, trips, tours in Mallorca

 

[mwc]

Simon

I and my family were on the same coach & I would agree with most of what you said. The tickets that we had been given had two in one part of the stand & another two a couple of blocks away. We only noticed this after we had entered the ground & started looking for our seats. The reason we did not check when given, is that the guide said they were all labelled & would be together. I also noticed on the way back three germans were complaining as they had been given junior tickets & had to pay the extra to get in the ground at the turnstile which the guide refunded to them in cash on the way back.

 

[SimonButlerPhotography]

Simon

I and my family were on the same coach & I would agree with most of what you said. The tickets that we had been given had two in one part of the stand & another two a couple of blocks away. We only noticed this after we had entered the ground & started looking for our seats. The reason we did not check when given, is that the guide said they were all labelled & would be together. I also noticed on the way back three germans were complaining as they had been given junior tickets & had to pay the extra to get in the ground at the turnstile which the guide refunded to them in cash on the way back.

Hi MWC

Small world - shame we didn't realise that we were both on the coach, it would have been nice to meet another forumite!

Sorry to hear you had the same problem with your tickets as I did. Did you manage to all sit together in the end?

Cheers

Simon

 

[mwc]

Yes we did, in the end!!!!!!.