Hotel Inglaterra Estoril — Hotel in Cascais

This is going to be a long review, so if you lose concentration easily here's a summary: Fabulous 2 night stay at a boutique hotel in gorgeous Estoril. You should stay here!

If this is a family run hotel, then I want to extend my gratitude to the family who obviously has put their passion and dedication into providing a wonderfully pleasant experience for their guests.

I stayed here two nights in the modern wing. James checked us in and he was very thorough. Marta was also very professional and friendly. I chose the modern twin premium because for my partner and I that just made sense. The room was spacious, well equipped, generous and fresh. Everything worked as it was supposed to from the air conditioning to the shower.

The outside terrace was a nice addition and when the evening allowed, we used the space.

The pool area had plenty of shade with tables and chaises. The pool was a great feature and I thank you for keeping it in fine working order.

I paid 20€ each night for breakfast. That's 10€ per person which included everything anyone could need from eggs to meats, cheeses, breads and unlimited coffee and teas. Both mornings we arrived at between 8:00-8:30 and there was plenty of food.

To address some of the critiques I've read: if you don't like small, older bathrooms then choose the modern rooms. You will pay extra, but maybe it will satisfy you.

The pool missing tiles. Yes. There were some. They are centimetres in size and small tiles sometimes come lose. That won't ruin your ability to swim or chill.

The breakfast buffet. I addressed that above. If you want a full spread of every breakfast food imagineable then I suggest a restaurant down the street. There are plenty. Google can help.

Smells. You must remember that the older wing is a unique building that has been refurbished over the years. There are going to be random smells. Again, choose the modern wing.

Noise. We experienced nothing unusual. The joy with the modern wing is that no one is staying above you. The restaurant is down the hall and I didn't hear a peep. Street noise might be a nuisance for some if you have the slider open. I slept like a baby on the deliciously comfortable bed.

Thank you to all the staff who worked tirelessly to make this non-Portuguese speaking American very happy. I would absolutely stay here again without a...

The stay was acceptable enough and hotel staff were nice. However, you should not consider this a 4 star hotel. I’m unclear of what technically constitutes a 4-star designation (and maybe Hotel Inglaterra meets all of them) but the age of the building itself severely limits the hotel’s ability to provide true 4-star accommodations. When booking you should consider this a 2.5-3 star experience for the reasons below.

Starting with the location of the rooms - many rooms are located on the 1st or ground floors. The wooden floorboards and doors are so thin that you if you stay on the bottom two floors (as I did for a night), you will hear basically every single person entering the lobby and using the stairs. If you are a light sleeper I would request a room on the 2nd floor or higher. Most finishes within the rooms themselves appear to have last been renovated many decades ago. This means that there is a shortage of plugs (had to unplug a lamp so I could charge my phone). It also means that many rooms have faucets/showers/bidets that use old 2-handle systems where it’s time consuming to find the optimal temperature. Each room (I tried 3) also comes with its own unique smell, likely a result of a strong room spray to cover up the damp/mildew smell that permeates the entire hotel. The biggest problem is the old AC units in each room. I went in late August and it was about 80F outside. The AC units in first 2 rooms essentially did not work. At the highest fan speed and coldest setting, They would weakly blow air at a rate insufficient to cool the room at all. The last night I stayed in a larger room where the AC was able to bring the temperature below 75F.

Without a few million euros in renovations, most of the problems I mentioned cannot be resolved in meaningful enough ways to make Hotel Inglaterra equivalent to the average 4 star hotel. In the words of one of the hotel staff, “It’s an old building what do you expect”. Sure there is a pool, a restaurant, and a laundry service, but the basics of comfort simply cannot be met without...

For a hotel with such high reviews, I was thoroughly disappointed by its quality. In terms of the positives, the location of the hotel is quite good, also the pool area provided by the hotel is quite nice for sunbathing and swimming. It also has its own bar which provides food and drinks.

However, the negatives far outweigh the positives. The air conditioning in the room did not work and despite telling the staff immediately afterwards, the air conditioning was not fixed.

Bathroom scales were provided, but they did not work, and they were not fixed or changed even after informing the hotel staff.

Also, when booking the hotel initially, we requested a double bed. Despite the hotel being almost empty, we were refused a double room. During our stay, we only saw 4 people at the hotel.

The TV was also broken. The screen was flickering and half of the screen was distorted, as if someone had punched the screen. We informed the staff but they refused to do anything about it.

When I go to a hotel, one thing I tend to worry about is my valuables, such as my passport, phone, laptop, etc. So one thing I expect from every hotel I visit is a fully functioning safe that is free to use. But at this hotel, you have to pay for the safe. I have never come across a hotel which charges you to use the safe.

We also found that the bed sheets were not changed daily and the bed sheets sometimes had additional mysterious stains on them which they didn't have when we left in the morning. It seemed like they just left the same bed sheets and dropped something on them.

In addition to the bed sheets, the towels were not replaced everyday and the number of towels we received everyday would be completely random. Sometimes, they would just take all but one of the towels, meaning that there weren't enough towels...