Independente Comporta — Hotel in Grândola

See below an email that I sent to Independente after my stay. Wholly in keeping with their lax attitude, I am yet to receive a response:

I recently stayed with you in a one bed villa. And I wanted to share some feedback on my experience.

Overall you have a very beautiful and well designed property, and a young and generally enthusiastic staff. All of the components for a first class experience are there. However the operation of the site lets down the overall experience.

During our stay we were let down significantly by the lack of children’s activities that are advertised on your website. Whereas we certainly weren’t planning to leave our children every day, my wife and I were planning on an hour or two a day to relax away from the kids. In fact we booked independente almost exclusively on this basis.

When we arrived and asked about the kids activities, we were met with a shrug “I don’t know”. Having spoken to a few team members it turned out “maybe Sunday, not on Monday or Tuesday, and maybe Wednesday”. That’s simply not good enough. I received a message confirming that there would be activities on Wednesday.

Fast forward to Wednesday. We make plans for a drink with friends for an hour or so. We arrive to drop off the children. No one there. I message the front desk to find out the situation. I receive a reply: “unfortunately no :(“

Plans completely ruined. And overall our experience of our time at Independente fundamentally different from expectations.

Another situation on Tuesday. We return from a long day at the beach at around 6pm. Plan is pizzas by the pool with the kids. We try and order at around 6:30. You’ve ran out of dough. You’re a 5 star hotel charging Eur 800 a night and you’ve ran out of dough?? Some of the charm of the experience is in how remote you are. But with that being the case everything also needs to work for your customers as there is no backup. The front desk were as helpful as they could be, and offered a single frozen pizza from the room service menu. To also add most of the room service menu was also unable that evening due to ‘problems with the gas’.

There are also other small things that are just not up to scratch.

Pool towels not available in the morning or in the evening Private pools not cleaned / cleared each evening with towels left Drinks glasses not cleared away from the fire pit areas each evening Breakfast orders consistently delivered incorrectly

None of these small things would be an issue on their own. But together with the bigger points just make for an experience that is less than it should be.

I don’t know what I expect in response to this. The fundamentals should make Independente an incredible place to stay. But our experience did not live up to our...

Booked this place late summer 2024 for a stay in August /September 2025 - ourselves, our parents, our children. Booked flights accordingly.||January 2025 - a message to say our booking of a 3 bed villa private pool villa was being cancelled and if we wanted, replaced with 3 double rooms. No good for our group, and obviously quite a different offering owing to lack of communal space and the private pool facility sought. First of all the hotel blamed on a "technical glitch" then "overbooking". Given I was in direct communication with the hotel at the time of booking, many months ago, as well as booking through booking.com, I thought it was abundantly clear that the hotel had decided to cancel our booking in favour of another.... The hotel did not deny this and said they would move us to "another village" with similar accommodation. But read on...||As with any booking, we spent many hours researching precisely where we wanted to stay and so the idea of being relocated at the choice of the hotel is completely unsatisfactory. ||Despite chasing the hotel for details of their alternative offering, they've not bothered to get back in touch, knowing full well they've left our holiday in total disarray.||I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait a few more days for a response, but in my own search for other accommodation to salvage the holiday, I now see that our villa at Independente IS in fact still available on booking.com - just at 4 times the price. The irony of this is, we would have paid the additional amount in the first place, and we're about to book something elsewhere, actually more costly than the new price they're charging.||But this place has well and truly put money before it's customers, and that's no doubt a good indicator as to the overall experience we may well have had at Independente. I sense a very lucky escape!||Book at your own risk, and think twice before booking your flights and car hire to go and stay at this place! A very shoddy, very disingenuous way to treat guests who've booked their holiday in good faith, and certainly not a hotel we'll ever consider again. ||Shame on you...

From my pov absolutely spectacular place and I’ll definitely come back. The concept is just super cool. The hotel is located as remote as it gets in the middle of nature with spectacular night skies and forest all around. With a car you’re in 15 min at the most stunning beaches of Europe (Eg galé beach). The atmosphere is chilled, relaxed, quite boho but better.

The design of the houses and interiors is 100% locally inspired and sourced - and just super beautiful/aesthetic. They very much act as sustainable as possible which we appreciated a lot. The restaurant was the best one of all the ones we tried in comporta (e.g. cavalarica, Gomes Casa de vinhos, etc. which btw were also very good). The dishes are also locally inspired and sourced and really positively surprised us in taste and appearance.

The staff (especially Martha and Pedro) were super supportive and friendly - we absolutely felt in good hands. You can feel the people working there stand behind the concept. The hotel is brand new - so there are some minor things that need some improvement: hold daily mini bar refill routine staff during breakfast sometimes seemed a bit unstructured (forgetting order, waiting times) more vegan breakfast options better barista skills (eg flat white and proper cappuccino) salt and pepper should be on every table information flow (dinner on the house was charged in the end; free SPA voucher not redeemable due to no availability) no yoga classes or gym available at the moment (will be provided sometime they said) — how amazing would be outdoor yoga classes offered every morning somewhere in the near nature? fire places are amazing but should be lit and used more

Bit as I said we loved it and will come back. Comporta as a region is...