Palma or Port de Sóller?

I'd choose Palma for a short Mallorca trip built around restaurants and city walks, and Port de Sóller when the hotel, waterfront and slower afternoons are the holiday. For three or four nights, I would stay in one place. Both can be part of the trip without packing twice.

Do not treat Palma, Sóller and Port de Sóller as three names for a similar stay. Palma is the city choice. Sóller is the inland town; the port is the waterside choice. I would decide which evening I want to repeat before choosing the hotel. A room with a larger terrace does not compensate for spending every dinner wishing you had booked in the other base.

I'd choose Palma for a first short visit when dinner, architecture and shopping take priority over returning to a resort pool. Keep the hotel within the part of the city where you expect to walk in the evening. A central room is useful when you want to stop back between an afternoon out and dinner, rather than carrying everything until bedtime.

I would not choose an address merely because its listing includes Palma. Compare the exact neighborhood and airport route with your intended evenings. If your plan is mostly beach time, a city address can become an unnecessary daily journey. If you want Palma for two dinners and one walk but the rest of the stay at the water, I would put the longer part of the booking at the port.

I'd choose Port de Sóller for four or more nights when you want to spend substantial time at the hotel or around the bay. It makes sense for a holiday with fewer timed visits and more afternoons left open. I would keep one Palma day rather than making the city a repeated evening commute.

Read the arrival route as carefully as the sea view. A hillside hotel and a waterfront address offer different walks home. Before paying for a room, settle whether the route to restaurants involves a climb, whether a shuttle is part of the rate and how you return after it stops. I would choose the hillside for the hotel itself, and the waterfront when leaving for a simple dinner on foot matters every night.

Jumeirah Mallorca is a concrete example of the hotel-led choice: it sits above Port de Sóller and sells both sea-view and mountain-view categories. I would compare it when afternoons at the property matter. Pick the named view in the room category; do not infer it from the sea in the hotel photograph.

I'd consider a car-free trip if the plan stays around Palma and the Sóller area, using public transport for a planned outing and a transfer when it solves arrival. The official TIB route 204 connects Port de Sóller, Sóller and Palma, with the current timetable and stops listed together. It is a bus route, not a hotel-door transfer.

For a remote country hotel or a sequence of different coves, I would reassess the car-free plan. The existence of a bus between two towns does not make every beach convenient. Count the walk to the stop, waiting and the final journey back before deciding that an outing fits. I would rather book one private excursion than rent a car for several days when it would sit unused at the hotel.

For a week, I'd consider two nights in Palma followed by four at the port, with the remaining night assigned around your flights. That gives the city its evenings and the seaside stay enough time to settle into. It is a planning example, not a reason to add a second hotel when you would rather unpack once.

For four nights, I would usually choose one base and visit the other. With children, a room change means more than the road journey: there is packing, a gap before the next room is ready and another bedtime in a new layout. I would split only when each hotel gives the family something they will actually use. Two similar rooms in different towns rarely earn that disruption.

I would settle the base, the room arrangement and the arrival transfer together. At the port, pay for a view only when the selected room actually includes it; a waterfront property can have rooms facing elsewhere. For a family, compare sleeping spaces and bathrooms before a pool photograph. In Palma, I would favor the location that makes dinner and the return walk easy.

Leave one unbooked afternoon in a short stay. Mallorca does not need a new destination every day to justify the trip, and paying for a hotel you never use is an expensive way to rush. Start from the Mallorca planning hub, choose the base and then build only the outings that improve those nights.

If the island is still undecided, the four-night Santorini or Mykonos comparison offers a different choice: a caldera-view hotel or beach days. I would settle that before comparing rooms in Mallorca.