Roaz de Bandeira House — Hotel in Olhão

Disgusting people and the most vile experience I have ever had in my life.

You only need to read their aggressive responses to see their personality. I wish I had read reviews properly before booking as I would never have booked this horrible guest house. I booked a last minute holiday so I didn’t do enough research.

Expensive and poor value for money (unless you are sharing a room with many people - I was a single traveller and for me it was terrible value. No cleaning at all - rooms only cleaned once every 4 days so if your stay is shorter there is no housekeeping whatsoever. 1 small towel even though I booked a family room so I should have had minimum 2 people towels etc. Bed completely old and uncomfortable, one very soft and old one very hard and basically a diaper changing bed; pillows cheap nasty quality. I paid extra to get my own toilet but most rooms have external toilet and you hear the other guests through the walls and going to their toilet and every creak and step and door opening. For just a few euro more you can get a proper hotel room up the road. Breakfast is not self service so you don’t see how they’re taking your food and you can’t help yourself you have to keep asking for anything. Coffee is weak filter coffee.)

The most revolting thing above all is the owners. Abusive, rude, nasty bullies. The woman especially is a horrible angry person who obviously hates her job. Anything you need is too much trouble. She told me if I don’t like it I should go and said, this isn’t a hotel. I said fine so give me the money back then. No, she wanted to keep the money and the room. She said because I’d held the room for two weeks other people couldn’t book. I pointed out there were still other rooms unbooked so…? Lol. I am now going to dispute the charge with my credit card because on top of everything else they’re stealing from me. I wasn’t going to even leave I was going to suffer but because they saw the other guests take my side they panicked and decided to give me a 50% refund if I left so I agreed. But I was charged all the municipal tax for my stay (they kept it as a little present for themselves) and they took extra money in addition to my one night dreadful stay, which they weren’t entitled to. I was very reasonable and said I’ll pay for the night I stayed but they are greedy and want more. If they were not money grabbing on top of everything else I wouldn’t even leave them a bad review as I just wanted to put this behind me - but this is the final straw and I’m just so so sick of them now.

As if this wasn’t enough, they also leaked my personal information to the other hotel and told the other hotel I hated it there (why?? I don’t know. Weird.) And don’t leak my personal information here. You know who I am so don’t pretend like for other reviews.

I should have insisted on a full refund before I left and they would have given it because they could see all the other guests were taking my side - but I just wanted to get out of that nightmare. The other guests were all shocked at how I was being treated. It’s thanks to them that I got any money back at all and the owners know this 100% because up til then the woman was saying not a penny refund… lol.

I really don’t want your response. You ignored my emails so just ignore this too. Let others read the negative reviews and see if they are all saying the same thing about you…? You almost ruined my holiday. I went all the way to the airport and I was going to get an early flight home. You wasted a day of my holiday and made me lose a night of sleep. You shouted and swore in my face. For what? In the end I decided no you won’t ruin my holiday and I paid extra and stayed in a 3* hotel up the road which was almost the same price and much better and thank god I had a nice holiday in spite of this couple and their horrible run down guesthouse. I hope people read the negative reviews and think twice about...

We’re circa 60 years old, reasonably fit and enjoy walking. We like to be away from noisy night life and prefer to holiday slightly out of season to avoid crowds. We stayed at Roaz de Bandeira in Olhão for 10 nights. Olhão itself is a functioning town. It’s a tourist town and in May it was pleasantly busy, with a feeling of life. The water front area is excellent and the whole town seems to be on the level with no hills to speak of. The restaurants are sensibly priced and plentiful, with varied menus. Much to our surprise there were municipal ferries that run regularly throughout the day to take you to various nearby islands where endless white sandy beaches await. They are cheap - circa £2 each way - and make an excursion to the beach an event. Even more beaches are available if you catch the train to Fuzeta or Tavira. The trains are cheap too. They are air conditioned and add another dimension to staying in Olhão when compared to some resorts on the western Algarve. ||But why Roaz de Bandeira and why have we given them top marks? The answer is easy. It’s the owners Claudia and Luis. We are not the first people to say this and we will not be the last. They are a winning team. They are decent people. The plumbing works. The air conditioning works (and is quiet). The bed was comfortable. The courtyard is sunny and a place to enjoy. Breakfast is served outside whenever the weather permits. The location is far more convenient than a map might suggest. The train station and bus station are nearby. The walk into town is along the main boulevard. It is on the level, lit and safe, taking you past the central church and the locals debating, with passion, in the cafes along the way. We never minded the slight walk. ||Roaz de Bandeira is a quiet, spotless, well managed guest house. They have a great Booking.com rating of 9.1 which is well deserved. That is the result of their attention to detail and caring about making each stay as enjoyable as possible. Claudia and Luis are almost invisible if that is your preference. They are there to welcome you, serve you breakfast and also there to say goodbye. However, if you want to know more and seek information about the surrounding area, they will devote time to you. Our advice would be to make full use of their kindness and knowledge. They are interested in helping you to find what might make your stay that much more enjoyable. Between them they can point you in the direction of the best restaurants for you; the best boat trips for you; the best walks for you; the best cycle rides for you; the best places to see the stunning sunrises or sunsets. They truly care and that is priceless. ||Who would we recommend it to? Besides people like us, it might be small groups of walkers, or fishermen, or cyclists. Indeed, besides directing you to the best and most honest traders in the town, Luis may have the time to provide guided tours himself of the area, or fishing etc. We had a wonderful day out with him and by far our best lunch of the trip in a café/restaurant we would never have found or, if we had, we would never have gone in! Try him. You may get lucky. He knows his stuff and if you happen to love fishing, he is definitely your man to sort something out. Besides all that, Luis knows where and when it is safe to paddle board, kayak etc. We could go on, but in a nutshell we loved it and if you first make sure that Roaz de Bandeira is the type of place you like to stay, then it is best in class with great hosts who are there to be almost invisible polite hosts or people to make your stay even more fantastic. So, our advice would be, do your research, book, go, engage with Luis and Claudia and enjoy. Hopefully, you’ll...

We booked a room at this Guesthouse relying heavily on the reviews of others. For that reason, I have decided to write a review to reflect our experience here, which was vastly different from the one I was expecting.||||Upon check-in, we were given a lengthy briefing (about an hour!) on the property, the (many) rules of staying there, and information on the local area. We were then led down to the courtyard area where breakfast is served. The first thing we saw was a rat the size of a cat run along the lounge area. That rat was in the back of our minds for the rest of our stay.||||Once we went to our room, we noticed a stale, musty smell. This was made exponentially worse when we turned on the A/C. The A/C did not seem to cool the room very well, and the smell was unbearable, so eventually we decided to turn it off and suffer the heat. Since we couldn't use the A/C, we opened the sliding door at night to try to get some fresh air. Unfortunately, there was no bug screen, so we had mosquitoes in our room. This, combined with an uncomfortable mattress, made for 4 very long nights. ||||The shower head was broken and being held in place by some toilet paper.||||In the morning, we were looking forward to a nice breakfast. After waiting until 0900 for breakfast to start, we were disappointed again. While the products may be exclusively Portuguese, they were clearly not high quality. The breakfast was the same all 4 days: Bread, 3 types of homemade jams, 2 types of cereal, yogurt, sliced ham/chorizo from a package, sliced cheese from a package, watermelon, honeydew melon. The coffee was drinkable but not enjoyable. ||||The towels are changed ONLY EVERY FOUR DAYS. This means we never got fresh towels. Given the amount we paid to stay there and the fact that there was not enough room to hang the towels properly to dry, this was a very big negative for us.||||At some point, we ran out of toilet paper. We were given a hard time when we asked for more. ||||One night, after getting back to the room (after being at the beach, etc), I wanted to take a shower. As the water was (and stayed) ice cold, it seems the hot water is turned off after a certain hour, so I took a cold shower.||||When it was finally time to check out, we mentioned we needed to get our drinks out of the fridge in the communal kitchen. It was about 10:30/10:40. We were told we had to wait till 11:00 (Communal kitchen hours start at 11:00!). ||||Overall, a very uncomfortable experience. We couldn't...