Why Mallorca's marinas demand a bespoke playbook
Mallorca is not a single port — it is a constellation of seventeen marinas, each with its own berth geometry, security protocol and last-mile choreography. Provisioning a yacht in Puerto Portals at 07:30 is operationally nothing like a same-day drop in Port de Sóller or Cala Ratjada.
This guide distils a season of operational data into the rules of thumb our dispatch desk uses every day.
Express vs standard delivery: the cut-off windows
We operate two delivery tiers across the island:
- Express (under 2 hours) — Palma core, Portals, Port Adriano, Andratx, Calanova.
- Standard (same-day, 4–8h) — Pollença, Alcúdia, Sóller, Cala Ratjada, Cala d'Or, Porto Cristo.
For remote berths we recommend placing fresh and frozen orders before 14:00 the day prior. Champagne, spirits and dry stores can be cut later but the central kitchen needs the full manifest by 16:00 for next-morning dispatch.
Cold chain: documented, never assumed
Every fresh and frozen order ships with a HACCP-compliant cold-chain logger clipped to the box. The captain receives the full temperature trace by email when the box is signed for. No verbal "it's fine" — the data sits in your inbox alongside the invoice.
Berth handover
Ninety percent of issues happen in the last fifty metres. Three rules:
- Share the berth code and gate access PIN in advance — pier security in Palma changes weekly.
- Nominate a single point of contact on board (chef, stew or chief). Our drivers will not hand over to dock-walkers.
- If the boat is on charter, send us the guest privacy level so we can route through service entrances or the stern.
What to order from where
We carry the bulk of our inventory at the Palma central warehouse. For high-end florals, charcuterie and rare wines we route to the same-day suppliers across the island and consolidate at the central kitchen before dispatch — which is why a full provisioning manifest is always faster than five separate orders.
The captain's six-hour rule
If you have a six-hour window, we can provision an arriving boat from scratch. Beyond that, you are inside the standard charter prep envelope and we will allocate a dedicated coordinator.
"The difference between a great provisioner and a panicked one is forty-five minutes of paperwork the night before." — Capt. M. Grimaldi
Order checklist
- Berth (marina + dock + slot)
- Delivery window (start and hard deadline)
- Guest count (crew + charter party)
- Allergens and dietary flags
- Champagne and spirits preferences
- Florals and table styling
- Bulk water + ice block sizing
- Pickup of empties on next visit
All of this is captured automatically when you build a custom order in our portal — but the checklist is the universal vocabulary, no matter how you place the order.
