Padel fever hit Mallorca hard in 2018. | Thomas Engström

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There’s a fever going on in the Scandinavian community – Padel fever. As the sport is getting more and more popular in Scandinavia, the tourists that come want to play more and more – according to a large hotel booking site, the fact that the hotel announces that they have their own court or cooperation with a padel club makes the bookings go up instantly. When padel fever hit Mallorca hard in 2018, several new clubs opened and the Nordic people in Mallorca started to organise different types of tournaments. For couples with nice lunches afterwards, for kids on Sundays, and for woman, as Marie Hellström explains.

“My husband Micke and I moved to Mallorca in January 2013, when we decided to make a change in our lives. We sat one evening in Båstad, Sweden in November 2012. Weather was grey, rain drizzled and it was cold, Micke cooked as usual, (he is a chef and has run his own restaurants for many years). As retirement was approaching for him, we wanted to do something new in our lives, and we loved the idea of moving abroad and so we decided to come to Mallorca! That same evening, we found an apartment to rent in Palma. With a short time to prepare, we took our two suitcases and arrived on January 8, 2013. We enjoyed the island from the first day! Both Micke and I have played golf all our lives and we continue to do so in Mallorca as well. It did not take long before both he and I started groups for men’s and women’s golf.

One day in early 2017, I came in contact with padel for the first time. We were four female friends that wanted to try something new, so we meet up to play at Pins Padel in Palma, and since that day I was completely sold! However, we immediately realised that we needed a coach as we were very poor players, as we could barely get the ball over the net. We started training with a private coach. It took a lot of training, week after week, and eventually matches. Since I love to organise, it did not take long before I started arranging female padel tournaments. It was first one game day per week, then it only increased as the group expanded, and today we play five days a week. In total, I have 110 girls in my padel groups, from many nationalities, mostly Swedes and Spaniards, but also girls from England, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Australia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Belgium, Italy and more. I now have almost completely put the golf clubs on the shelf and go all in for padel!

Our children, who have also been playing golf since they were 4 years old, now prefer padel to golf. It is a very accessible sport, especially here on Mallorca, where there are very many clubs and where the cost of playing is about 4 euros per person an hour. A private lesson with a trainer costs about 35 euros for an hour. Thanks to the fantastic climate, we can play padel outdoors, all year round. Since you always play in pairs and the course is relatively small, it helps that you can also “small talk” a little with each other during the game. It really is a social sport, both before, during and after the game. And I think that is a big contributing reason why padel has become such a popular sport in the world. It also does not take that long to play a match, about 1.5 hours.”

Fastest growing boat club on Mallorca

Boating should be easy, fun and full of joy! Agapi Boat Club changes everything for those who used to see boating as something too demanding or expensive. A boat club membership is simply the natural choice for modern boaters. Our members focus on the fun – leave the hassle to us, says Stefan and Henrietta Roslund, a Swedish couple managing Agapi Boat Club Mallorca. They are convinced that the business model of sharing economy is the future way of go boating. We have been running the club for 5 years and this last year, even in a hard pandemic, has been our best year. Due to the pandemic people could not travel and stayed at home here on Mallorca and they wanted to go out on the sea and explore. But to have your own boat here is very expensive therefore the club alternative is a great way of getting the access to the great boat life in a very easy way. This year we are going to have thirteen boats in Calanova. We have a range of boats from 6 to 13 metres. This way our members can choose the boat type that suits them best.
Agapi Boat Club offers its members unlimited boating days and they take pride in giving members the opportunity to get onboard all year round. We all have different priorities, but we want our members to have the same access to boating you would have if you owned a boat yourself – the flexibility to hit the water any time, any day, say Stefan.

For us, a boating membership has two benefits. First, it gives them total control of their boating costs – none of the surprise’s owners face with service costs, repairs, insurance, depreciation, and more. And second, they get continuity – the certainty of hassle-free boating for as long as they like. You simply sign up for a membership and, if you do not opt out, your renewal is as seamless as any other of the other subscriptions in your daily life.