Wine & Books by the Sea Algarve Resort

Everything is amazing here. My only negative points are the lack of natural orange juice for breakfast - not to the standard of a 5 star hotel. And also that to get scrambled eggs, one had to go to the omelette queue which was always long and took around 10 minutes. The rooms are are big and comfortable; the direct accesses to the beach is very convenient; the main pool is huge and always enough sun beds for guests. Had a very relaxing family time and definitely plan to return next year.

This is not a 5-star hotel. Location is good if you’re looking for something close to the beach, however there are no restaurants close by so you’ll definitely need a car to get to anything worthwhile. We stayed in a Club-room and it was an okay room. It had a nice view of the resort, the bathroom however, isn’t very well planed so you wont be able to get ready at the same time. The hotel does not have irons, they only offer an ironing service. The maids are friendly and clean well but for our 7-night stay they left things in our room three times and took one of our key-cards to the room with them twice. The rest of the staff are not friendly or service minded, only one man working in the Mar Club was able to meet 5-star service. We had lunch one day at the Sunset-restaurant and waited 45 minutes for our food only to be asked what we ordered after that. We decided to not have lunch there again. The breakfast was okay, not much to complain over except again the staff. Once you have gotten your coffee, no one asks if you’ll like more and we were only informed on the last day we could get anything other than brewed coffee. On our last full day we went to the reception to confirm our late checkout that we asked for when we booked and again when we checked in only to be informed we would be changed €50 for every hour we “over stayed”. We decided to leave by the normal checkout time because we felt uncomfortable even though we had confirmed late checkout prior to this. Not once were we asked how our stay was. I could go on for a while…if you’re a family looking for a beachfront resort this is probably for you. I wouldn’t recommend it to any couple or anyone looking for 5-star service.

I honestly don’t understand how this hotel calls itself 5-star. The service is terrible — no one to welcome you at the lobby, endless lines at check-in and check-out, and housekeeping that barely does the basics. Staff don’t look professional and seem poorly trained. The facilities are just as disappointing. They even charge a daily fee for the gym, which should be included at this price point. And to top it off, the hallways were literally dark with no lights. I took a photo because I couldn’t believe it — not “mood lighting,” just cheap and frankly creepy. At best, this feels like a 3-star hotel pretending to be luxury. Overpriced, badly managed, and absolutely not worth it.