Hotel Dunas de Sal

Lovely small hotel only a few minutes walk to the beach and about 10 minutes walk to the centre. They are taxis around if you need. Hotel is lovely and clean, rooms are made every day, staff are friendly. We upgraded to a superior room and got a kettle, safe , mini fridge, and a lovely balcony. Breakfast is simple and nice. There is a live cooking station for eggs, availability of juice, tea coffee, local produce, fruit, cakes etc. we are out every night loads of restaurants and tried all the local food, including fish and all the seafood. The local beer and local drink grogue is lovely too.

A very nice hotel and worth the 4 stars, we stayed here for a few nights. Breakfast is great and lunch or evening meals great also, service is great. The only thing is that the hotel is 15 minute walk from Santa Maria and the beach had more wind also then near Santa Maria at least when we stayed in april/may. The hotel has beds at the beach but you have to walk past the Hilton working/side entrance which is not that nice. No beach bar etc. available.

We stayed here for 7 nights in mid July 2025. This is an excellent small hotel with top class service from all the staff at all levels. Very clean hotel, the rooms were cleaned daily. Great swimming pool, plenty of sunbeds around the pool. You can change your sunbed towels daily if you wish. Excellent food choices for the evening meals we had there (we were half board, breakfast only). Really good selection at breakfast too. The staff in the restaurant, the bar and the reception where always helpful, patient and informative too. There is a safe in the room which you have to pay for (no refund), for the sunbed towels you have to pay a deposit for use for each day you stay but this is refunded at the end. You can only pay in cash for the towels, it is either in Euros or local currency Escudos (CVS). There is an ATM in the reception area which gives you both currencies. You can also take the sunbed towels to the beach. They also have some local traders setup their stalls during the week to sell the trinkets. The beach is a five minute walk from hotel, you cross over the road on a zebra crossing and walk along side the Hilton Hotel. The Dunas de Sal hotel has its only beach sunbeds and parasols too. There is a lovely beach bar right nearby from the hotel complex Robinsons, you can use this place and it has clean toilets too. In the bar you can pay by cash (Euros or CVS) and cards too. There plenty of actvities to do in the sea, jet ski, wind surfing etc, we didn't do that but I am sure that will be reasonably priced. When you walk onto the beach from the hotel there is a long concrete boulevard which walks the lenghth of the sea in between the hotels/bars and restaurants and at the end it takes you straight into Santa Maria town centre, it is very well lit up in the evenings and it was safe to walk along there. The beach is clean, all sandy, the sea is sandy and clear water, little bit cold at first but great to swim in. On some windy days the waves can be big and frequent and we did have a couple of red flag days along the beach as it was too windy. You can split your days between the swimming pool and the beach. Highly recommend this hotel if you want to be away from the larger hotels which cater for families.