Oura Parque — Hotel in Albufeira

Met Jose on arrival (sun). Friendly and showed us to apartment which was ready before official check in time. Towels/pool towels and tea towels all provided. Nice touch was a bottle of wine for us on arrival. There was no kettle there which there should have been but one was swiftly bought to us. This didn’t work so they had to bring us a new one.

Shock came when we went out onto terrace to find building works right by pool (from property behind) . It was a Sunday so all was quiet. However by Monday morning all the noise/dust started so quiet/chilled time by the pool it wasn’t. Spoke to Jose about this and said nothing was mentioned when booking (hotels.com) and had we known this we wouldn’t have booked. He advised that hotels.com don’t have the option to add this info but that it is on booking.com website (i have checked and nothing on there mentioning the building works) . To be fair he did try and resolve it by offering us a 1bed apt further out but that was no good for us as we needed 2 beds as have 18yr old. Also offered 3 bed apt in old town but he advised this was very dated, had no pool or terrace to sit out on. Also said if we wanted to see if we could find somewhere else ourselves he would give us remainder of money for the nights we hadn’t stayed. However we didn’t go with this as too stressful trying to find somewhere at short notice as we as us already fully unpacked and food shop bought. So decided to just stay and see our rest of wk.

I knew it wasn’t a modern apartment but wasn’t prepared for the condition of some of the furniture. Drawer in bedrooms were stuck and drawer front came off and bottom came out. Had to clean these drawers out before we put our stuff in them. Shower head kept falling down and in the eve the hot water would run out so last person ended up having a cold shower.

Only 1 mirror in the whole apartment and that was in bathroom (no plug in there) . So made getting ready in eve a nightmare as we had to do hair in lounge/bedroom using our tiny compact mirror we had bought.

Needs more plugs in kitchen as there was only 1 yet there was a toaster/kettle/coffee machine so we couldn’t use them all at same time and had to keep unplugging them.

Pros -location, 5 mins walk to strip, 20-25 to old town -contact with management -gated

Cons -building work/noise -condition of furniture -only mirror was in bathroom

Needs updating or just being given a spruce up. Need some mirrors in bedrooms and even better if there is a small dressing table nearby to sit at. Also need more...

I would like to be very positive, but unfortunately I can't (even though the 4.4 score of Google gave the indication this would be a really good place).

We stayed for one night (we were planning on more, but we actually left after one night), so my experience is limited. But what I did like is the amount of space. The apartment is quite big, there is plenty of room. We liked the outside, with the pool, as well as the parking options, and (in a way) the location, close but not too close to the Albufeira atmosphere.

However there were quite some con's. First thing being the state of the apartment. It was quite old, things were clearly due for replacement. The blinds (photo 1) were not fully closing, hence during the night there would still be light in the bedroom (there were no curtains, just the blinds). Related to that is the fact that the apartment is not at all near soundproof. All night there was a lot of noise coming from the street, where drunken people would sing/shout/whatever when the passed the complex. The not-closing blinds did not help here.

In our case also our direct neighbours (in the apartment below us) participated in the noisemaking between 02:00-04:00. So basically we did not sleep much the first night (and we did not expect much improvement). This combined with the fact that we were expecting a bit more modern apartment, made us decide to leave and look for another place to stay.

I would not recommend the place for anyone that wants to enjoy piece and quiet during the night (either internal or external noises). If you plan on going out and you need a cheap place to stay, this might be the...

Place is a little dated but still awesome. Ground-floor apartment good size, clean and with straight access to the pool. Great location and quiet. The stuff is also amazing, they do everything for you and try to make ur stay as comfortable as possible. Definitely come back...