Montecarmo 12 — Hotel in Lisbon

Three stars feels a bit harsh for a place like this, but there are a lot of little problems with this hotel. Nothing major, but little things add up and for the price they shouldn’t happen. I’ll start with the bad and finish with the good.

The bad - The rooms are a relatively poor design considering the pomp and pageantry about the “architects vision” when you are shown the room.

There are no towel rails for anything but the hand towel. So you have to hang them over doors.

There’s no place in the shower for the bar of soap they give you, so you just hold it the whole time.

The architect didn’t want you to see a TV, so you stare a blank wall. If you shut the shutters, it’s more big blank spaces. It feels weird. Not in a minimal sense just not very enjoyable. Like a Nordic prison.

Everything is at odd heights. Nothing is at a height that is ergonomic so you are constantly bending over to put things down or pick them up.

The fridge is so small it only holds the 6 drinks on the mini bar list and is underneath a coffee table.

The bathrobe is made for someone less than 5’ tall. It is tiny.

The light system is annoying and it’s all floor/lamp lighting, which is fine if you’re laying down but the rest of the time you’re staring straight into the lights.

The heat / ac is complicated. I overheard multiple guests complain of the same. So complicated in fact there are two systems (one on top of the other) and turning them on is like trying to crack a safe.

You can’t lock the door to the hall way. It’s an auto lock situation, so it is locked, people can’t just walk in. But you cant deadbolt or latch it. There is a key hole, so it’s possible, but this is a keyless hotel with passcodes and fobs.

The even more odd thing is you can lock the bathroom door. Which means they think it’s more likely you need to stop the person in your room from coming in the bathroom, than someone from outside coming in your room.

Our toilet often just continued to run and we had to jiggle the toilet flush to stop it.

I don’t think the door buzzer works at the entrance of the hotel cause we stood out there for ages trying to get in and then two people came out together looking flustered.

Everything seems to be a bit too rigid. There are practices in place (I assume) to make ones experience feel more luxurious, but they mostly just slow things down - and waiting is not luxurious. They constantly deliver things together (like the twins in The Shining) even if there is only need for one of them. My only guess is that one of them doesn’t trust the other to do a basic task or they are in the early stages of a relationship cause it’s super weird.

The good - The staff are very friendly and helpful. They respond quickly to messages (most of the time). Although to be fair, talking to some other guests, it seems everyone had at least one experience where no one answered or it was ages before a response.

Location is good. There are lots of great local bars and restaurants within walking distance.

The room is quiet. The bed is comfortable. The towels are plush. There are lovely little amenities like the soap, shampoo and conditioner bars, and bath salts...

My first trip to Lisbon was for work, and the hotel affiliated with the event I was attending was sold out. I booked the Montecarmo 12 instead, and let me tell you - I feel SO lucky that first hotel was booked!

The Montecarmo 12 is a quaint, beautiful boutique hotel nestled in the heart of Lisbon’s city center. I was a 2-3 minute walk from bakeries, restaurants, and the botanical gardens. Though it is so centrally located, it is still very quiet and there was no street noise that I noticed. While I did leave every day to head to the Lisbon Congress Center, even that was only a 10-15 minute uber ride away. Every evening I was very easily able to find fantastic restaurants and entertainment within a very short walk of the hotel.

The service is immaculate. Upon arriving you must buzz from the outside as the doors are locked by keypad/key entry. My luggage was brought in for me and I received a personal tour of the hotel lobby, garden, and shown to my room. Two pasteis de nata, as well as a small bottle of porto wine, were left as greeting gifts along with a personalized note welcoming me to Lisbon and the Montecarmo 12. My last night, I came back to find a new note thanking me for my stay, as well as some delicious macarons. The morning I left, the checkout experience was exceptionally quick (literally just handing over the key), and they even made me a coffee while I waited for my Uber.

The first day, you will receive an email asking for your breakfast requests. I know hotel breakfasts usually leave a bit to be desired, but not here! There are time slots and they do book up (I unfortunately forgot to request my breakfast early enough on my last day, and had to run to the airport during the only open slots). The breakfast is incredible. I had the most decadent avocado toast of my life, to the point that I sent pictures of it to my family. You can eat in the small sitting area, the garden, or even the kitchen, where you can watch the chef create your meal!

I desperately want to return to Lisbon for pleasure (as opposed to work) and already know that I will absolutely return to the Montecarmo...

Worst hotel experience we have ever had. They make you pay a deposit of 150 euro - and take your money. We made a small shard in a soap holder that already had shards. We told the staff ourselves and to our surprise they wanted us to pay for it (we wasn’t at that time informer of the price since there wasn’t a manager at the hotel but we had never imagined it could end up so expensive) so we arranged with the kind staff that we brought it home with us. The price ended up being all 150 euro. We have never recieved an invoice saying the cost price is 150. We have found simular soap holders at a shop in Lisbon and in our hometown Copenhagen and none of them have been as expensive. They talk about the design being unique but it is not. Also we paid for breakfast and chose the hotel partly because of it since I was six months pregnant at the time and needed a full breakfast before going out the door. Breakfast was cancelled with an only 15 minutes notice and we never received the money back for the breakfast we never had. It was sad that the chef was sick but a hotel normally has a replacement or would atleast have informed us earlier and arranged breakfast another place. This didn’t happen. The next day the chef came and he was clearly still sick. Honestly we would have prefered him staying home since making food for other people should not be done by sick people. For breakfast we had to fill out a form ordering it the day before every day. This was fine but the two days we had breakfast there was a lot of the items they didn’t have. It looked good at the photos but the selection in real life did not match the photos nor the breakfast form that had to...