Hotel Baía Grande — Hotel in Albufeira

Worse stubborn and most unhelpful staff ever - in most service industries around the world, the customer is always right..not in this hotel, where the hotel staff is always right. We travelled as family of four to include 2 young children, but had to specify 2 adults on the booking to avoid an extra room being charged but did specify we needed a cot for the room. On check in, our kids were on the sofa close by. However, we were treated like criminals during our stay being accused for hiding our kids from the booking including even purposely locked out of our room straight after a swim which not professional or courteous. Once advised of the importance in the morning, we informed them we would see them later in the day, but as we were not quick enough, they decided to block our room entry card! Why not just leave a note in the hotel room etc instead of freezing our access when we were all cold and wet from a swim!

Other issues include very slow service at reception, and long queues in the morning for breakfast. I patiently waited for 30 mins to be seen by reception to ask for a beach towel to be told they ran out! During one breakfast, we had to split our family of 4 with 2 young children into two tables, but when one large table became free, we asked if we could take to be told NO WAY, for it to be taken by 4 adults, bizarre?! Ps you need a car for this hotel, shuttle buses are VERY limited and nearest supermarket is a 20 mins walk! Each time I complained to senior management, they are very quick to boast about their experience and hotel policies etc but NEVER truly listen or address customer issues, hence found them to be the most unhelpful and stubborn staff including general manager himself. I am just waiting for them to reply to this email, once again defending their hotel policy and magnificent staff etc...

Avoid this hotel if customer service is an important part of your stay..very disappointing for a 4 star hotel, probably worse stay in...

Pros: Nice quiet location on top of a hill 5min drive from Albufeira. And within walking distance from the beach. Very clean hotel and well maintained Parking big enough to find space at any time of the day/night They provide additional towels for the swimming pool free of charge that you can change daily if you want (and they are closing their eyes if you take them to the beach) They do 24h reception service which is handy when you arrive in the middle of the night like us.

Cons: I was a bit surprised by their outdoor pool schedule. The pool closes at 7PM and the pool bar at 6PM! While I understand you don't want to leave them open too late for people in the rooms around to sleep, I think these closing times are way too early! Especially if you've spent the afternoon/evening outside and want to refresh in the pool and/or a drink in the evening before going to bed. At the end of the day this is mainly a holiday hotel. Breakfast is a bit cheap for a 4 stars hotel. Especially for the drinks where orange/apple juices where far from fresh juices (very industrial) and the coffee machines were providing very bad quality coffees. Food was ok but a bit cheap again. The staff told us that the tap water isn't drinkable. You get a free 1L mineral water bottle on arrival. But then no water fountain anywhere except during breakfast. And when I arrived in the morning with my empty bottle, to fill it during the breakfast, a member of staff told me I wasn't allowed to fill the bottle with the water fountain 😤. Again far from what I was expecting from a 4...

Hotel is described as being close to the beach - it is not, being particularly inconvenient for the mobility impaired as the nearest beach involves a walk through the wilderness and many steep inclines. In fact this hotel is not particularly convenient for travelling anywhere and significant costs will be incurred in getting cabs as there is no public transport nearby. Staff at the hotel don’t seem to have heard of the concept of customer service and quite extraordinarily, this is the first time we have in fact found receptionists to be argumentative. They tried to charge us for bills that were not ours; we are vegetarian so it was amusing to be presented with sizeable bills for cheeseburgers, so be sure to check the itemised invoice on departure. Hairdryer is weak and attached to the bathroom wall which was inconvenient. There is no iron in the bedroom and ironing must be requested as part of the laundry service. Use of the safe is charged at €2 per day to use. Breakfast is mediocre (alternating between burnt and undercooked) and repetitive. Breakfast staff will act like they have never seen you before on entry, despite a sizeable group of us having stayed there for a week. Linen in the rooms had mysterious marks on them. A bag of souvenirs was thrown away by the cleaners, although to be fair they were able to retrieve it. All in all, we are not quite sure how this hotel achieved a four star status and found it underwhelming for...