Vilamoura Garden Hotel

Just returned from 1 week at Vilamoura Garden Hotel on B&B. 1st impressions were of a fairly old hotel which has tried its best to be brought upto date. Our room was huge, but with a lot of wasted space. Not sure why anyone would want 2 tv’s!. Definitely not enough drawer space for tee shirts, shorts etc; Enough hanging space and hangers, with safe also in wardrobe at no extra charge. Complimentary bottle of water in room on arrival. Small fridge, but enough room for a few cans or bottles of beer, water, wine. Small bathroom for size of room and gone are the days when you should have to step into the bath for the overhead shower. The bottom of our bath was badly marked and chipped and the sink had a hairline crack right around it. There was also a damp patch in one corner of the ceiling. Our balcony came with a table and 2 chairs and overlooked the pool area and outside dining area. Breakfast was pleasant and adequate, with the usual cold meats, cheeses, yoghurts, fruit, cereals, pastries etc; The big let down was the so called hot food - it was not even lukewarm. On the plus side, they had toasters that actually worked. We had no evening meals at the hotel, so cannot comment. We chose to eat out at Vilamoura Marina and at a nearby sports bar, called Sailors Corner, which was in walking distance. Food here was great and there was plenty of choice from wraps, sandwiches, pizzas, burgers, pasta and so on. Next door was a Spar supermarket for any supplies needed. The pool scene was on most days quiet and no need to reserve beds. You had to keep chasing the sun around as there was a lot of shade due to overhanging trees. The trees also seemed to encroach on a number of balconies which were in the shade all the time. Maintenance of the trees definitely needs looking at. The free shuttle bus from the nearby Hilton hotel was convenient for getting to the marina and beach and ran at numerous times of the day starting at 10am. We found it just as easy to order an Uber and these were good value for money. Wouldn’t want to walk or like to walk all the way to the marina and back. Too many busy dual carriageway roads. The hotel was very popular with golfers, especially short weekend breaks and this made the hotel noisier and busier Friday to Monday. All the staff were friendly and helpful, however we probably wouldn’t stay again as it’s a little too far out of Vilamoura itself for us.

Lovely experience at this hotel - reception and staff super friendly and helpful. Clean, comfortable room - beds very comfortable. Great breakfast with lots of hot and cold foods, fresh fruit and coffee/tea choices. Small but nice pool area. Shuttle bus available into Villamoura Marina but you can also walk in about 20/25 minutes.

Positives. The weather was great , the end, not quite as bad as that, but…. Negatives . This hotel is not 4 star , 3 star at a push . Rooms Ok, found the bed very comfortable and the housekeeping was excellent. Garden view rooms are a view of the main road🤷‍♂️ Breakfast was the usual suspects , some hot stuff, meat and cheese, cereal and pastries, nothing startling, fresh orange juice was great and the star of the show.

If you wanted an omelette there was a 5.5 euro surcharge, never ever known that at a hotel, fried or poached eggs NO charge omelette 5.5 euro 😂 Food and drink overpriced. Staff in general were very good couple of exceptions but I’ll not single them out. Hotel ambiance.( perhaps we hit a bad few days,) but this was our experience.

Most of our time around the pool was relaxing however from about 3/4 pm we were invaded by loud and foul mouthed obnoxious groups of men returning from the serenity of the golf course. As the drink flowed and males behaviour just got worse , this was far from relaxing , there were others guests who were equally loud and foul mouthed barely able to compile a sentence without using the F word.

The first two days were pleasant but on day 3 two groups of these neanderthols appeared to arrive one group of white UK males 40/60 age range, ( golfers) appeared to think that all the other guests wanted to listen to their loud music , loud persona and foul language by the pool ,music ranging from trance, chill, oasis vibe played at full blast for the benefit of the entire hotel. Unfortunately there was another group of equally loud drunken obnoxious predominantly Asian males in opposition who decided they’d play their punjabi bangra bangers in direct opposition . As the afternoon progressed and the drink and sun took hold one guy with little man syndrome splashed one of the Asians and it all threatened to kick off, luckily it was defused by a few guys with a modicum of common sense on both sides and both groups returned to an adult reset. This was repeated the next afternoon but not as vociferously as the Brits had dispersed before the Asians turned up but the nonsense from both groups was as bad as the previous afternoon without the childish confrontations, at no time did any of the hotel staff intervene other than to provide these groups with copious amounts of alcohol which did nothing but exacerbate the situation giving them carte Blanche to behave exactly as they wished, plying them with beer, shorts , jager bombs etc.

It was a relief that both groups were away from the hotel until about 3/ 4pm .

Once these groups tipped up from their golfing etc we just left the pool area and went to our room , and even on the balcony it was noisy ,we had to close the patio doors to escape the madness.

Fortunately the Asians had gone by the Sunday and the other group by the Monday returning the hotel to a bit of normality for our final 2 days, however it did impact on 3 days of our holiday.

The hotel staff should have nipped this in the bud immediately but they didn’t and in setting the bar low it was the respectful courteous guests that suffered, poor show IMO.

There are 3 restaurants/ bars in the vicinity of the hotel, sailors corner which is great for a drink or a light lunch, Pirata restaurant absolutely brilliant food at reasonable prices , run by some lovely older Portuguese gentleman so kind and respectful , please go to this restaurant 🙏and montel sol which is a bit more expensive but also serves excellent food, all offering far better value service and quality than the tourist rip off establishments on the marina👍

The resort itself Vilamoura marina, sounds lovely , and is picturesque, however after about 7pm it becomes hell on earth, dozens of groups of absolute morons in various stages of inebriation, the swearing the loutish behaviour, their unbelievable unawareness of anything outside their bubble, Mother Terasa could have been sitting next to them and their behaviour would NOT have improved.

All these Irish bars which are Irish due to the fact that they sell Guinness and magners there is NOTHING remotely Irish about them🤷‍♂️

Plenty of Thai massage parlours and other dodgy businesses all around the marina , if that’s your thing, extremely seedy.

I used to walk down to the marina everyday from the hotel, nice walk their and back gets you 8000 steps, 50 mins 👍and at about 10 am the place was being cleaned of the detritus from the previous evening, broken glass discarded drinks and sick🤷‍♂️

I’ll now go onto the prices in the bars and restaurants around the marina, we ate out every night and every meal other than pirata and montel sol was average at best , grossly overpriced,utterly underwhelming.

I actually paid 6.5 euro for a can of STRONGBOW one night in a pub called Masters . Expect to pay 18 to 24 euro for a pizza,25 euro for a bottle of HOUSE wine🤔35/40 euro for bottle of Prosecco. 30 euro plus for sea bass or any other common fish.

Gin and mixer 11 euro, cocktails from about 12 euros.

Spent about 1500 euro in 8 nights, a meal and bottle of wine for 2 persons 100 euro plus. Couple of gin and tonics afterwards another 45 euros. Couple of soft drinks and sandwiches fries etc at the hotel through the day 50 euro. I think Vilamoura Marina is probably the worst resort I’ve EVER visited and easily the most expensive, these people should be wearing masks and singing stand and deliver 🤷‍♂️

Y