By admin For the final month of my summer in Europe, I planned to spend the first half of August in Spain. My friend Nina decided to join me to kick things off with a week in the Balearic Islands. Yay! We’d spend three nights in Ibiza, two nights in Mallorca, and three nights in Menorca. Neither of us had ever been to any of the Balearic Islands, and we were excited to explore – and relax, sunbathe and drink wine, of course.
First Things First: Getting to Ibiza
There were no nonstop flights from the US to any of the Balearic Islands, so we booked a KLM flight to Ibiza with a connection in Amsterdam. A bonus: KLM operated a 747 from JFK-AMS, so we’d both get to experience our first (perhaps only) flight on the distinctive partial-double-deck aircraft. Woohoo! All the time I had spent traveling had turned me into a budding aviation geek.
We boarded our next flight from Amsterdam to Ibiza with a bunch of Europeans ready to party. Then we waited. And waited some more. It turned out that some people hadn’t made it on the plane, so KLM had to remove their checked baggage before we took off. I couldn’t imagine how these people managed to miss the flight even though their bags had made it onto the plane successfully.
Then, something even stranger happened. I turned my attention away from the bag hunt occurring outside to the curious view of a young couple being escorted off the flight. Once they were safely off the aircraft, a flight attendant announced that the aggressive couple had threatened a crew member, so they would not be joining us on our flight to Ibiza (he couldn’t resist adding, “and we are very happy to not have them with us anymore”). WTF?! One more update: now we had to wait for the couple’s bags to be removed as well. Oh brother.
A saving grace on what was turning out to be one of the most confounding departure delays I’d ever experienced: the business class cabin was nearly empty. While European Business didn’t offer much luxury in terms of seating (the seating arrangement was the same as the main cabin, with the middle seats blocked off), we did get entire rows to ourselves. The result was that I could keep close tabs on the baggage situation, and visit the bathroom as frequently as I wished, without worrying about bothering the person sitting in the aisle. Small wins!
Our Accommodations: 7Pines Resort
I had selected 7Pines Resort due to its remote location on the west side of the island, approximately 30 minutes from the center of town. Set above dramatic cliffs and overlooking the sea, it was supposed to have spectacular views and sunsets, away from the raging party scene. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we did not plan to hit any of the all-night DJ sets on this trip.
After the long trip to Ibiza, we didn’t have big ambitions for our first night. We decided to have dinner onsite, forcing ourselves to stay awake until 10pm, so we could hopefully get a good night’s sleep and adjust to the time difference.
Catamaran Cruise
For our first full day, we had booked an afternoon small group catamaran cruise. Even though Nina gets seasick, we love getting on the water during our vacations, so it was a must-do when in Ibiza (we planned to do another cruise in Mallorca as well). Nina would just take a Dramanine and we’d be golden.
We met our crew at a small restaurant in Ibiza Town: two gorgeous Danish girls, a couple in their late 40s from Jersey, and two other American couples who did their own thing the entire day. As soon as we got on board and listened to the requisite safety speech, the rosé started flowing.
The clear water was so many different shades of blue; the Balearic Sea was up there with some of the most beautiful bodies of water I’d ever seen. After sailing around for a couple hours, we pulled into a beach club for lunch. Nina and I had become friendly with the couple from Jersey, so we all decided to sit together.
After a day drinking rosé in the sun, we weren’t motivated to do much that night. We opted to eat dinner back at the hotel and go to bed.
Cotton Beach Club
While we had no desire to hit up the nightclubs in Ibiza, we knew we wanted to hang out at a beach club during the day. The island featured a wide range of options, ranging from wild party scene to relaxed island vibes (hint: we were aiming for the latter). Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that the popular clubs get booked up far in advance during the high season, so plan ahead! We looked a week or two before our trip and still couldn’t book beds at our top choices (Experimental Beach Club, El Chiringuito, Amante). We ended up at Cotton Beach Club, which had the added benefit of being the closest to 7Pines.
Our reservation cost €25 for a bed and towel, €25 for an optional umbrella, and required a minimum F&B spend of €50 per person. Some places were even more expensive, so I didn’t mind ponying up.
The beach was beautiful, but I wasn’t that impressed with the club. It didn’t feel like anything that special (just a bunch of chairs and umbrellas lined up on the beach), and the staff wasn’t especially attentive. It was entertaining watching Nina try on every single cover-up that the ladies on the beach were selling (and then pissing them off by trying to negotiate). She did eventually buy something, however. After meeting our F&B requirement on glasses of rosé (Nina) and Campari Spritzes (me), we decided we’d be best off going back to the hotel pool for the rest of the afternoon.
Night in Ibiza Town
We did want to go into town for one night, so after showering, we booked a taxi from 7Pines. There was a single woman from the UK also waiting for a taxi and headed in our direction. Given that taxis were few and far between in the area, we did the nice thing and agreed to share with her.
She had an interesting story: she was going through a divorce and was on holiday with her young kids and parents (I was surprised by the amount of families in Ibiza). A guy she knew had invited her to a party, so this was going to be her big night out while her parents baby-sat.
We pulled into a large property seemingly in the middle of nowhere; however, cars were packed on a field acting as a parking lot, and people were streaming up the hill toward a building as music bumped in the background. It wasn’t exactly the Ibiza party scene I had pictured, but it looked like it was going to be a crowded shit show, and I was happy to drop off our new friend and speed away. We had our brush with Ibiza club and we were over it.
The taxi dropped us off in Dalt Vila, Ibiza’s charming old town. This was more like it.
Final Morning
We planned to take a 1pm ferry to Menorca, so we had a bit of time in the morning to hit the gym and enjoy breakfast. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the gym was, it also had limited amounts of equipment. I arrived to a packed room, so I decided to try my best to get my cardio in outside.
