I would like to say that my review most certainly does not reflect on the manager or his staff, who were without exception, extremely friendly and courteous. The manager held early Thursday evening drinks receptions with the guests in order to get to know them, and to receive feedback from those who were staying there. The location is an easy 10 minute walk into the centre of the town and a rather more determined ~ 15 minutes walk, through the town, to boardwalks over the dunes to the beach. Further lovely inland walks were also easily accessible from the hotel. The location was one of the hotel's strongest points. I must point out however, that this is absolutely NOT by any stretch of the imagination, a 4 star hotel, rather a 2 or 3 star. We stayed in a Superior Double room. The room was large, clean and brightly decorated and had a large balcony with distant views of both the beach and Alvor Harbour. The furnishings in the room however, were extremely cheap. I joked to my wife that the room looked like it had been furnished from the bargain basement of IKEA - until we saw labels on the furniture from .. IKEA!! Whilst there was a very useful fridge and safe, there was not a single drawer in the room, meaning that apart from using a couple of open shelves, we spent our time living out of our suitcases. The room was also extremely poorly designed - no mirrors where you would expect to see them, no dressing table (or drawers!) all of which could easily have been fitted into the room. The bathroom was very large, but contained only a sink, toilet and walk - in shower. Bizarrely, the window in the shower (the only source of ventilation in the room) opened onto the balcony of the room next door!! It was as if the designer had never actually stayed in a hotel!! The towels were replaced on a rather random basis, but several of the towels we were given were frayed and even had holes in them! We found out during our stay, that it had not originally been designed as a hotel, but had been converted from an old people's home! The breakfast room was on the lower ground floor. It had high level windows and no views whatsoever. Again, it had been furnished cheaply and was more like a canteen. Breakfast was the same each day, with the same limited hot and cold options (and I must say, lovely fresh fruit and pastries). There were no cooked options - you couldn't request an omelette for example, but we did request fried eggs. There is no bar in the evening - just a few bottles behind a very small reception and a couple of settees. The pool was a great disappointment. It was more like a large plunge pool and you certainly couldn't do more than a few strokes from one end to the other. Despite the hotel having ~ 80 double rooms, there were only 40 sun loungers - and only 14 fixed sun shades. Despite the hotel's policy of not "reserving" sun loungers, we found that if you hadn't done so before going to breakfast at 8am, you stood no chance
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