"My wife and I stayed at E Live Hotels, Adults Only in Cala Major for four nights in September 2026 to celebrate our 50th birthdays. We booked a sea-view room with breakfast and paid just over £2,000 through Booking.com, including our transfer.
I should say from the outset that I actually enjoyed our stay and we had a lovely short break. However, I think the three-star rating is about right, and at the price we paid I came away feeling that the hotel was fairly average.
### The location
This is undoubtedly the hotel's biggest asset.
It is **right on Cala Major beach**, with direct access from the pool area using your room key card. The beach is lovely, the sea is clean and there are several beach bars nearby. Sunbeds on the beach were €15 a day.
Palma is also incredibly easy to reach — the bus takes around 15 minutes — and a taxi from Palma is roughly 15–20 minutes. We also took the bus in the other direction to Portals, which was well worth doing if you want to see the enormous yachts and some much more upmarket restaurants.
Cala Major itself isn't particularly glamorous. The main road is lined with small independent restaurants, supermarkets, spas and rather a lot of massage parlours! However, we felt perfectly safe and everyone we encountered was friendly and spoke good English. The supermarkets were also reasonably priced, which was useful for buying drinks and snacks.
### The hotel
This is where things become a little less impressive.
The hotel is **very dated and tired**. Having known the area from many years ago, I honestly don't think an enormous amount of money has been spent on the hotel since then.
The communal carpets have quite a few stains, the lifts are incredibly slow, and the bedrooms are very basic considering the price. The beds are also two single beds pushed together, which I found particularly odd for an adults-only hotel.
Our air conditioning worked well, although remember that the balcony door needs to be closed for it to operate.
Our room was perfectly comfortable, but I would recommend being careful about which room you book. We were on the fourth floor on the left-hand side of the building, facing the neighboring hotel. Unfortunately, our balcony looked directly onto their breakfast area, meaning we couldn't really have the curtains open in the morning without feeling like we were on display.
We still had a sea view, but having specifically paid for one, I felt the room was not one of the better options.
### Pool and beach
The pool was clean, a good size and well maintained, with comfortable sunbeds and a pool bar.
I particularly liked the hotel's policy regarding sunbed reservations. If someone had left their belongings on a sunbed for more than 30 minutes without returning, staff would remove them. I actually saw this being enforced, which was refreshing!
In September we had no difficulty finding a good sunbed, although I imagine this could be much more difficult in peak season as there are more rooms than sunbeds.
The beach was probably the highlight of the stay. It was clean, attractive and really enjoyable.
One slightly bizarre issue was the little fish in the sea which kept nipping people's legs! They could give you quite a nasty bite and there were plenty of people shouting "ouch" every few minutes. It didn't ruin the experience, but it certainly made you think twice about getting back in!
### Food and drinks
Breakfast was absolutely fine. I'd read some reviews saying it wasn't very good, but I thought there was a reasonable selection and the coffee was actually quite good for a buffet breakfast. There was an egg station, although the service was very slow on one morning.
The outside terrace overlooking the sea was a particularly lovely place to have breakfast.
Unfortunately, there were also **buckets around the dining room collecting water from the ceiling**, with screens being used to hide some of them. I'm guessing this was connected to the old air-conditioning system, but whatever the cause, it really didn't give the best impression.
The pool bar was reasonably priced by hotel standards — around €6 for a beer and more for cocktails.
One thing I did find particularly frustrating was being charged €5 for a bottle of water at the beach bar, and then being told they couldn't simply provide a glass with ice and lemon. When you're paying over £2,000 for four nights with breakfast, that felt unnecessarily petty.
There are plenty of supermarkets nearby, so my advice would be to buy your own drinks and keep them in the room.
### Staff and service
The staff were generally friendly and helpful. The reception team were pleasant and the room cleaners were lovely.
We did have one incident where someone entered our room without knocking while my wife was using the toilet, which was obviously awkward, although I'm sure it was simply an honest mistake.
The hotel also has an interesting eco policy where you can choose not to have your room cleaned and receive a free drink instead. We didn't take up the offer, but I thought it was a good idea.
### Around the hotel
We ate at **Calypso**, the restaurant directly behind the hotel, on most of our evenings and really enjoyed it. The pizza was genuinely some of the best I've had, and a €16 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc was excellent. The staff were extremely friendly and looked after us very well.
### Overall
We had a **really enjoyable four-day holiday**, and the location, beach and easy access to Palma were the main reasons.
However, I think the hotel needs some significant investment. The decor is dated, the rooms are basic and some of the maintenance issues are difficult to ignore.
The two hotels next door looked considerably smarter, although they are also considerably more expensive. I think that is the key to this hotel: **set your expectations correctly**.
If you're looking for a relatively budget hotel directly on a beautiful beach, and you're happy to accept that the hotel itself is tired and dated, you could have a very enjoyable stay.
If you're expecting a more luxurious experience because of the price you're paying, you may be disappointed.
For us, **three stars feels about right**.
Would I return? Probably not at the price we paid, as I think there are potentially better options with a little more research. But despite the negatives, we genuinely enjoyed our stay and came home feeling that we'd had a lovely birthday break."
