VOI Vila Do Farol Resort — Hotel in Sal

The transfer and the check-in was good, fast and with a nice little welcome drink.||Our ”bungalow” was more like a cabin among chained cabins and it had the structural integrity somewhere between a wonky garden shed and a tent. That made the rooms noise-sensitivity go through the roof. Not only can you hear your neighbor cough and fart, you can actually FEEL your neighbor correcting his pillow against his beds headboard through the wall onto your headboard. |There was a really nice patio in front of the ”bungalow”. The bed was ok, the AC was good and most importantly, the room was always very clean.|An interesting quirk was that you lock your room with a key from the inside and outside and you only get one key. So, when I decided to sleep in while my wife and daughter went for an early morning walk on the beach, they locked the door from the outside i.e locking me in when they left. This ment that I had to climb out the window like a catburglar to get to the patio. ||The hotel turned out to be an Italian province. Everyone and everything here is Italian. The guests, the food, the music, the hosts. Everything here is made to replicate Italy. I like Italy but I didn’t go to Cabo Verde to experience Italian food and music. It would be nice with some local elements.|The food is probably as good as it gets in an all inclusive hotel. Pretty good variation and there’s always something you like even for me as a picky eater. There are no sauces whatsoever. I would have liked a bearnaise sauce, a red wine sauce or some barbecue sauce. And for the love of god, season the food! At least make a station with spices. The only spices available are a salt shaker on every table, some ground pepper and chiliflakes in bowls by the pasta. ||The pool area was really nice. There were enough chairs and places to get shade. I think all pools feels like going through a hole in the ice but this pool was perfect for me. There are steps in it so you can get in gradually. Perfect! And the pool isn’t cold, it’s just me being a wuss.|But, the pool area is never quiet. If the Italian hosts aren’t shouting into the microphone of the PA-system, there’s Italian music playing.|Once a day, the Bravo hosts did a little dance by the pool. They looked as if they might have been a little tired of doing the same dance every day for god knows how long except for Eduardo. He went all in, every day. I think it was the highlight of his day. His energy was contagious.||The snack bar by the pool is more like the leftover bar. Cold fries and whatever is left from the breakfast. Didn’t look nice at all. Very worn down and wonky.|The pool bar is ok. A bit understaffed sometimes but ok. They should get some new glasses though. The ones they have are pretty worn out.||The lobby bar is the best one. A nice place to sit and sometimes there’s no music! Here you can sit in peace and quiet and play cards and enjoy the view. The local beer is really nice. The gin and tonic is by far the best drink. In the lobby bar you sometimes get your drink in a chilled glass but mostly in plastic glasses. All bars give you your drinks to go in a soggy paper cup. It feels like drinking out of an envelope after a while.||If you leave the hotel to explore the surroundings, beware of the hustlers. Hustlers are smooth and everywhere. They come up to you and say something like ”- Hello Mr. You stay at Vila do farol yes?”. When you say yes they say that they work at the hotel cleaning the pool or garden or whatever. I don’t know if they really work at the hotel but they do know that you’re staying at the hotel. Then they say that you have to visit their mom’s shop. DO NOT go with them! Support the local economy by shopping in a supermarcado or something instead.||Most of the hotel staff are, well, not exactly rude but they sure aren’t happy to see you either. When we checked out, the guy behind the counter said ”- You must pay tourist tax! €35.”. Ok ,fine. After I paid he gave me a receipt, didn’t say a word just walked away. Maybe a ”- I hope you had a nice stay.” or ”- Come again.” would have been nice?||Not all staff are like that. Fatima in the bar was nice. All the cleaning staff were amazing. They don’t just clean the rooms and the hotel, they clean the outdoors too! They sweep and mop every boardwalk and they do it smiling. Tip your...

The hotel has a good location near the Beach (however a bit far from Santa Maria - about 2.2kms). It has a very good salt water pool and in general the resort seems well designed despite the fact that it is obviously dated. The food is also ok, even though the variety isn't great and very repetitive for 1 week stays. Now, the classification I've given is not due to the fact that the hotel is dated or completely aiming only at italians. These two facts I already knew when I booked and it was ok for me. The rating is based on a series of facts, observations and opinions I have collected during my stay, namely: arrived at 3am, the staff check us in with a 5y old kid and no volunteer at all to help us with luggage and find the room that was assigned to us. It wasn't difficult to find it for sure but in a resort I'd expect a better treatment to the customer as it is usual in other resort from different brands. the shampoo or soap to take a shower or simply wash hands is ridiculously small and not effective at all. Also they are not refilled during the stay if you don't ask explicitly. So, if you want soap and it is finishing, it is better to ask for it or else you won't get it and need to buy in a local shop. water bottles are paid, regardless of having all inclusive package or not. Only cups of water are free. So during the night you either don't drink or need to buy bottles of water. room service looked unneffective and irregular, despite the sympathy of the staff. music and animation completely directed towards italian people, ignoring mostly people from other countries, including Kids. Also music is extremely loud in the pool area during almost the entire day and some of the nights as well, which, if you have kids that need proper rest (or yourself), make this hotel not a good pick for a holiday where you want to really rest. snacks during the day are only possible in one out of three bars, however they are only available until 18:00 which means that between the closure of this bar and the dinner at 19:30 you can't get anything to eat. Given that some tours to the island leave at 19:30 and return at 22:00, you won’t be able to have dinner unless you eat something before 18:00 at the bar. the pillows for adults are ridiculously small, almost useless. At least the one for the kid was ok. one night rained 15mins and immediately the room was flooded from water that entered from the door. While I do understand why it happened - poor construction, dated rooms - I do not understand that in a resort where we pay well we wake up in the middle of the night with the room flooded and everyone seems to believe it is normal. It is certainly not normal to pay well and have this experience of leaving in a social building. on the day after needed to ask twice for cleaning the flooded room until in fact someone comes to the room. The staff was so busy with flooded rooms that I could see that they didn't clean it properly, leaving some dirt and mud despite removing the water and only in the next day completed the cleaning. This is probably not exclusive from this hotel as I've heard same stories from Hilton for example but sometimes staff may ask you for something to drink because they cannot have it by themselves. It is shameful that in a place where temperature is very high that staff needs to rely on guests to get drinks, including water. forget about Internet access, there is Wi-Fi however the service is very poor and only somewhat working on the reception. In other places the coverage is fairly intermittent.

Given this experience which I have detailed here, I would not recommend this hotel unless you have no Kids, you are italian or you are not looking for a...

Let me start with the fact that I just read all the reviews over the years and it is concerning to read that nothing has changed at least over the past 6 years, I am not sure if it makes sense to write a review here. I wish I would have read the reviews on this website before coming here.|This is not a 4 star hotel in my opinion. It is perfectly fine to promote this hotel to Italian speaking people, but it is not ok to write in your description that main languages in this hotel are ENGLISH, Italian, Portuguese.. this is simply not true. I arrived in the night and checked in at the reception, his English was not good, but we could understand each other. However, he told me my bungalow number and I had to find it myself with a map in my hand, nobody helped me with the luggage (2 suit cases), disappointment #1. The room as you can read is old, but it was clean, good job on that. I though ok, maybe that's how it is here but no the following week a lot of Italians arrived and were greeted with cocktails and their suit cases were brought to their rooms, which made me feel left out, because I do not speak Italian? Ok I though, whatever. When I figured out that all the animation during the day and night is also in Italian only, I was very sad, I personally travel a lot and LOVE shows and since I travel alone, I prefer to stay at the hotel in the night and this was a HUGE disappointment #2 for me. When I went to the pool, no staff member spoke to me, like they did with all Italian speaking people and you feel discriminated. At a later point of my stay one young girl from the animation team came up to me and spoke English, I was happy and she told me that this is unfortunate she understands the frustration and there are many bad reviews about it. Well guess what? 2 days later, I hear them announcing the activities in Italian and English. So it is possible, but you just decided not to before? I understand that the majority is Italian, but you still have guests from other countries and each guest should be treated equally, if this is not possible, just simply do not promote it for any other speaking people out there. |As also mentioned by others, it is really ridiculous to ask the guests to pay 2 euros for 1.5 l water in an all inclusive hotel, you can refill the little bottles you have but this water is disgusting unfortunately. |Positive things: the food is great, I enjoyed the meals a lot, lots of choices. There were SOME staff members who actually smiled and sayed hello, like at the lobby bar.|The beach is amazing. What I would have prefered to have umbrellas and more shadow. There is one big spot with sun beds underneath, thats all the shadow you get and if you come in the afternoon good luck getting one. |Air conditioning is great in the room. Could use more of it in the main restaurant.|To summarize, I regret that I have booked 10 days and paid so much money to just be left out in this hotel. After speaking to some locals about the hotels we were told that apparently people say the same things about this hotel for years and I guess my own fault not to read all the reviews before coming here. I think this hotel could have its charm with fixing some of the issues and renovate, Maybe than it's worth the 4 stars. However, the island is very nice and you should book a tour...