Grande Real Santa Eulalia Resort & Hotel Spa — Hotel in Albufeira

Stayed in a self catering apartment 8-13 June 2025. ||To start with the fire incident. We were eating in the Atlantico restaurant and discovered the situation going back to our apartment through the hotel, a strong smell of wood fire smoke. A maintenance guy gestured to us to stay away and after about half an hour of no communications we walked around to the front up the side road (10-15 mins walk) to see if that way was open. The staff at the restaurant appeared to be aware of it but made no attempt to manage the situation and we received no communication at all from the establishment relating to it from the Monday it happened until we left on the Friday. There were people visibly distressed in the Atlantico restaurant area and it was about as poorly managed as you could have imagined.||I had a treatment booked at the spa on the Tuesday and had to check with reception if it was impacted by the fire, nobody contacted me. I was asked to rebook for Thursday. The treatment was excellent, but there was no hot water.||There are a large number of apartments in this complex (maybe 200?) and several underground car parks, there seemed to be a good number of people visiting from other areas for family time who had driven there and the facilities are set up for that. The site in general is very well presented and maintained. There is a small boutique on site, but no shop selling groceries etc. Reception directed us to the supermarket (turn left) but discovered it was about a 15 minute walk away and couldn't be bothered lugging shopping that far, they hadn't asked how we would get there or made any suggestions. There is a good mini market in the Alfagar complex to the right as you go out, 5 mins walk. And an even bigger one further up on the left after that, with a pharmacy next door.||The apartment was acceptable, bed firm and pillows/bedsheets clean and good. Towels are clean but have seen better days and a bit on the scratchy side, body wash/shampoo/conditioner are plentiful and nice quality. The doors and windows will let in outside noise, so take earplugs if you are a light sleeper. Ours had a bit of a 90's vibe, colourful tiles and appeared to have been updated since to make it a bit more neutral. The pictures on here are accurate. The apartment is well appointed with pots, pans, crockery and cutlery/utensils. The glasses and cups are tiny, take your travel cups! The apartment needed a damn good clean, the light fittings and similar places you don't touch with a daily clean were grimy, and squashed mosquitos all on the walls and doors as others have mentioned (although I didn't see a live one in the whole time we were there). The clothes dryer outside was broken and both sides of the sliding doors unlock so be wary of that, we discovered on the last day that one side had been open the whole time!! Although the site does feel very safe. ||As someone else mentioned, beach access is about a 5 minute walk from reception via a locked gate and several paths down past the restaurant/bar, and there appeared to be a charge for the sunbeds/parasols. We stayed around the pool at the pizzeria, which had enough sunbeds. There were quite a few tiles missing from the floor of the main pool there.||There are three peacocks wandering around, and several large and loud gulls loitering on the roofs around the pizzeria section. A chap wanders around the grounds with a bird of prey from time to time, which we assumed was to keep the gulls in check.||The Alfagar complex next door has entertainment going on til around 11pm and can be boisterous if you are over that side, they also have their bins right up against the joining fence, which smelled terrible. We had two cockroaches in our apartment on Tuesday when the Alfagar bins were collected, I suspect the two are related as we didn't see any for the other days. I mentioned this to reception and they noted it, requesting we raise it again if we saw more.||The Atlantico Bar and Restaurant are nice enough and you pay through the nose for the view. There is a tablet in the room which gives you directions for a free bottle of house wine if you book via that, the staff seemed a bit unaware of it initially, but we did get it. It was about 50E for a couple of sandwiches and drinks at the bar, and 110E for a full evening meal, even with the wine included. There are a couple of restaurants right outside the main entrance serving relatively standard meals at a more reasonable price than the on site offerings. The pizzeria on site is good quality and 15-20E for a wood fire pizza, you can eat in the outside area there or have it boxed to take away. ||The Real bar is a pleasant space, but as others have mentioned the service is atrocious. I ended up loitering around the bar to place an order, and they don't bring a card machine with the drinks so you have to go through the whole process again when you want to pay. Frustrating and we didn't bother going again.||In summary, a nice enough place, but the apartments are nowhere near what you would expect to be 5 star. I don't feel we received value for money and there wasn't a high level of care or attention in the...

PLEASE NOTE: I have edited this review after the hotel responded to it, as we are saddened by their lack of professionalism, empathy, hospitality and customer service. The hotel and the customer experience manager on duty do/did not seem to take any responsibility for our horrendous experience, which has been completely entirely 100% their responsibility. They do not seem to care to mend any future relationship between us and them, which is a huge oversight on their part as we are in the process of purchasing land in the region and need accommodations up-to 4 to 6 times a year.

As there is a limit to the amount of words that can be used to create a review on Google, we have edited our experiences down to simple bullet points.

ABOUT OUR STAY: we booked a suite with resort view for 12 nights including breakfast we made paid use of restaurant and spa our total amount spent at resort and spa exceeds 2100 euros our first stay was in suite #125, then second suite #333 after large amount of complaints, we declined move to third suite #225 due to bad experience and already ruined vacation

COMPLAINTS: condescending attitude of (male) reception staff extremely awkward check-in due to behavior of staff as mentioned above leaving bad first impression intense sewage smell inside suite hallway leading into bedroom (suite #125) infestation of flying bugs with cocoons hanging on ceiling and in hallway closet - see pics (suite #125) bathrooms have not been upgraded like suites have. ceiling plates warped and damaged grout and cocking around bathtub yellow and black from mildew and/or mold (suite #125) broken shower head holder in second washroom (suite #125) uncomfortable beds due to thick "leak proof" cover used around mattress causing lack of sleep and backaches suites at the far end of building are noisy as they are situated right next to machinery (building's water boilers, pool filtration system, A/C, etc) televisions are the size of computer monitors (suite #125). walls, counter and window sills covered in brown dust (suite #125) extremely intense sewage smell in second washroom which spread throughout suite (suite #333) no drinking glasses present (suite #333) air conditioning unit made loud scratching/ticking sounds, hotel handyman advised us motor needs to be replaced - never returned to fix it (suite #333) no complimentary basket of apples present (suite #333) reception staff makes insincere promises to make you go away. deep cleaning of suite as promised after complaint never took place (suite #125) at least two adult cockroaches spotted in main washroom - see pic (suite #333)

We consider the pictures and descriptions of accommodations used by the hotel on their website and social media to be false advertising. For example, the following things are advertised but are not actually present inside the suites we were provided:

cheap, dirty, green colored plastic patio chairs unlike the advertised fancier chairs - no patio table present no radio present as mentioned on company website no wall art present as seen on social media posts no extra pillows on bed present as seen on website and social media posts no reed diffusers present as shown on website - which could have really helped with masking the sewage smells our suites had neither a sea view or resort view as they were situated on the far end having a side view of camping area instead pools are free to use for hotel guests but can only be used during specific hours with a total of 4 hours each day, split up in two 2-hour windows

We would like for the hotel to take their responsibility and are requesting a refund valued at 2 nights of our entire stay and a SINCERE apology will also be welcomed.

Lastly for those in similar situations, ask for the complaints book or file your complaint online as Portugal has official procedures in place which takes complaints very seriously and could result in the hotels having to pay fines and/or losing stars. Google search for "red...

We booked a seven night getaway at the resort, as we thought the hotel looked stunning and offered what we wanted.

Immediately, as you drive in, the place is very pleasing on the eye. The foyer is beautiful and has great views onlooking the beach. The bars, restaurants and pool area also grant this privilege. My partner and I really enjoy playing games (pool table & ping pong) and we were happy to see that there were areas that granted this.

The hotel was lacking entertainment-wise. Normally, at other hotels, evening entertainment is pretty good but the acts playing were average at best and did not bring in a crowd.

The location, despite the beauty of the resort and easy access to the beach, is isolated. It is not close to the Old Town or strips and quite a hike-away if you decide to walk. Ubers and Bolt are relatively cheap which helps, but access to shops for general supplies prove to be far less convenient than we would have liked. There is a Spar down the road from the hotel but be warned, it’s a tough walk back and forth!

Our room was nice and spacious - a little dated but it met our expectations. The bed offered is very big and comfortable. The bathroom large and well-finished. To our surprise, we were met by a lovely garden area with sun beds and a table and chairs. This gave access to views of the coast line, and was very nice to see in the morning and evening.

Housekeeping, we were not impressed by, beds were often not changed and the room not cleaned adequately. Staff often would enter our room unannounced which we were shocked by and left us feeling anxious.

The pool area was lovely. Happy that it was 24 hour access. It has three pools just outside the hotel. Two medium sized pools and one infant pool. There are a couple of other pools nearby the villas but we did not access these. We feel quite strongly that the pools should be separated i.e. one adult pool and the other for children. We acknowledge the hotel is not adults only, and for the most part we did not mind - however, there were moments when I wanted to swim in peace and often there was not an opportunity to. To add, we felt that the size of the pools did not accommodate the guests present. The availability of sun beds was mixed. Although, it was nice to not have to rush down to claim these first thing in the morning. Generally though, there are enough to go round. There was a lack of atmosphere whilst relaxing by the pool, we tend to like to hear music playing but this was absent.

We had half-board included with our stay. The breakfast was nice. The dinner offered a great variety and was tasty but a lot of the time it was cold. A few of the staff members were rude and were not attentive. We would order a drink and it would never arrive, despite us prompting. One night, there were ants crawling in the food!

Whilst we appreciated there were other restaurants on site, it was a shame these were not included in half board. In other hotels we’ve stayed in, a complimentary meal was included.

Generally speaking, the food and drink sold at the hotel is quite expensive, especially in comparison to restaurants and bars in the area. It is quite off putting to say the least with what you are provided. We also felt that there is a lack of choice on the drinks menu and many popular cocktails are not included. The two places we would recommend are: Portobello (food) & Rock Line Sports Bar (drinks - good cocktails).

There were a few other things that were a little disappointing - there was a lack of information about the local area and activities given by staff and you also had to pay for the sun beds on the beach which were quite clearly linked to the hotel…

Overall, the hotel is a nice place to stay at. It definitely is not five-star material - more like a four. We had a lovely time but there were some things that we were disappointed by. With some improvement, the hotel could definitely be worthy...