Albufeira Sol Hotel & Spa

Fantastic hotel and location

I was worried having read some of the more negative reviews of this hotel, but was pleasantly surprised when we got there. I’ll start with a few of the minor niggles first though. We arrived after an early morning flight at just after midday. We were told our room wasn’t ready and could see from the signs that check in was 4pm. I’d read about this already, so wasn’t too surprised. I was told that they’d try to get us in sooner and would phone me when the room was ready. We were given our all-inclusive wrist bands and told we could make full use of the facilities in the meantime. We never got a call and when my husband went to ask at 3.30 if the room was ready, he was given the keys. So that was a small frustration that we could have potentially had access to the room quicker to freshen up, but no harm done. Other reviews mention the size of the drinks. They are pretty tiny (200ml plastic cups) and you can only get two at a time per customer, but it’s not exactly a long walk to the bar, so this wasn’t that big a problem really. The cocktails are all pre-mixed from a dispenser, like you’d see soft drinks poured from, so I don’t think they were particularly strong, but tasty enough. There is only Superbock as the beer choice, but we enjoyed it. The biggest annoyance for us was, as mentioned in other reviews, the attitude from the bar staff. Not all of them, but a few were so incredibly surly to the point of rudeness. One man in particular refused to make eye contact with me or my husband, despite us being polite and smiley and trying to engage him. This is the biggest let down for the hotel and is the reason for my 4* review, rather than 5*. My husband’s theory was that they didn’t have to work for our custom as it was all-inclusive, and so didn’t have to win us over with their great service. This definitely wasn’t the case in other bars and restaurants we visited off-site, where the welcome was warm and friendly. I just felt like they had a genuine disdain for the people staying there and seemed resentful at having to serve us at all. I really feel the hotel needs to take on board the numerous comments about this and carry out some training with their team to help them understand how to give great service to their customers. The animation team were great though, and worked hard to keep guests entertained. The cleanliness of the hotel was excellent and I definitely didn’t see any of the concerns noted by other guests in their reviews. The room was really well equipped with a small kitchenette area, that we really didn’t need or use, aside from the kettle and the fridge for water. The bed was super comfy with gorgeous pillows. The curtains were lovely and thick and we had really great sleep every night as a result. The food in the main restaurant was absolutely amazing! Every dish was like a work of art. Believe the official photographs. The presentation really is that good. There was lots of choice. I’m a vegetarian and had no trouble every

We stayed self-catering as a family of 4 with 2 children aged 11 & 15. The hotel is lovely and clean and the staff were all friendly. We had a one bed apartment which was on the 5th floor, lovely views. The only issue we had was that the key cards stopped working in all the rooms on New Year around midnight. When we arrived back at 1.40 am, everyone had to wait till someone came and let them into their rooms. Technical faults happen just unfortunately the timings of this, we had to be let into our rooms the next day also until was fixed. They did organise as well as they could. We used the outside and inside pool. Outside was very cold as you would expect this time of year with the inside pool being an added bonus. The apartment had cooking facilities with hob and microwave, kettle and fridge. Unfortunately, we didn't use the spa as 7 euro each for a day would have made quite expensive, I did want to use the small gym but this would have been 7 euro to use just the gym. Location is in the new town we walked to the old town, which was about 35-40 minutes, or the tourist train was just around the corner. Lots of nice places to eat nearby and a Lidl around the corner. If you are looking for breakfast, you need to try Bom appetite just on the main road a few minutes away.