Ondamar — Hotel in Albufeira

We found the hotel staff to be welcoming with most speaking English very well. They were attentive and helpful. They had no issue storing our bags after checkout for free.

The open areas were clean and tidy, the wifi in the lobby area worked well with  a nice desked area or comfy seats to use whilst emailing or surfing. The outside pool was large and clean although not heated so cold in the mornings. There were no chairs at all around the pool, just lots of very low sunbeds.

The inside pool was quite small but warm and clean. It had signs saying swim caps were mandatory but, having bought some, it became obvious that noone else wore them and there was no enforcement by staff. There were no staff at all attending either pool.

The lifts all worked and were rapid, if a bit small.

Our apartment was clean and tidy although the furniture had seen better days and was a bit rickety.

My biggest gripe was how dimly lit the apartment was. The bulbs were all low powered making it hard to read at night and there were no lamps. During the day, the main room had loads of natural light from the patio doors.

The balconies were clean although a bit small but still useable.

The apartment was large although it was not well stocked with toiletries and the kitchen had no washing consumables so you need to buy your own washing up liquid, sponge etc.

There was no washing machine although the TV was quite modern...although only having one English Channel, Sky News. We brought a mini dvd player with us but the TV was wired into the wall and there was no power socket near by to provide power.

There is a shuttle bus to the old town that only runs a handful of times a day and it is small so dont bank on getting on it.

Lastly, to activate power in the apartment, you need to insert your door card key in the wall. When you leave, the power switches off to the entire apartment a few minutes after you remove the key card. This means any electronic clocks, chargers or other devices lose power and you have to reprogram them on your return when you switch the power on again.

Food in the hotel and the vending machines is very expensive.

All in all, a very...

This hotel has an impressive façade, spacious lobby area and is conveniently located - roughly midway between Albufeira old town and "The Strip", close to major supermarkets, taxi rank, sight-seeing hop-on-hop-off point, and tourist train.|The staff were, generally, helpful, and polite. Our self-catering apartment was also spacious, but the bathroom could do with an upgrade - chrome fittings either loose or tarnished, leaky shower-curtain facility within the bath creating a slip hazard on wet tiles.||The kitchen had the bare essentials but no teapot, wine glasses, egg cups. The fridge door shelves were also missing. It did have a dish washer that looked like it had never been used. (Is a dishwasher really necessary in a holiday apartment?) Teapot, wine glasses and fridge door shelves were eventually provided on request. An iron and ironing board also had to be requested and were provided on receipt of a refundable deposit. Despite a similar request to provide a hair dryer, it never materialised.||Admittedly, none of these circumstances would jeopardise the overall enjoyment of a holiday but, in a hotel that promotes itself as a 4-star venue, they should not occur.||However, one circumstance that could jeopardise your enjoyment is the foul smell of drains that wafts intermittently through the outdoor pool area. To be fair, this may not be exclusively the hotel's fault as the smell persists in the wider area outside of the hotel and there is visual evidence of sewage effluent discharge into a dry riverbed nearby. Perhaps the €2/person/day tourist tax which is being levied by the Municipio de Albufeira could be used to address this.||One other issue to watch out for in Albufeira generally is the state of the footpaths. They are mainly constructed of small stones arranged, mosaic style, in a sandy substrate. You have to admire the skill of the people who put them there but, over time, they have become hazardous - elevated in places by tree roots, sunken in others by vehicles parking on them, holes in others through decades of wear and tear. If you are planning on walking around the area, bring...

Stayed for 1 week in August 2023. We made contact with the hotel before flying out and always got a response. We arrived around 11am, check in was not until between 4-5pm. They had a place we could store our bags, it's small but just about did what was required. They did say we could use all the facilities in and around the pool while we waited. Once time for check in came around, we were pleased with the rooms and how comfortable the beds were (the one bedroom apartment). The bedroom has 2 single beds, the lounge had 1 sofa bed and 1 pull out bed. Air conditioning, in the bedroom, and in the lounge. The only problem was that the outdoor units are both on the balcony blowing hot air, so you can't sit on the balcony and have the air conditioning on. The rooms were cleaned, beds were made and fresh towels were arranged every day of our stay.

The pool area was lovely. Very much a mixed bag of people staying at the hotel, both party groups and families. We were a family group with both teenagers and young children but never had any issues. It is a lively place at times. One group of lads tricked one of their party into wearing a dissolveable pair of trunks 🤣. He had to get out of the pool naked!! ( he did make an effort to cover himself him).

The pool bar was €5 a pint, the most expensive we found. In old or new towns, a pint can easily be bound for €2 50 -€3

We found that across the area, the service was not as friendly, not sure if this was a culture thing.

One or 2 small negatives but mostly positive... all of our party would love to go...