NH Marina Portimão Resort — Hotel in Portimão

Genuinely the worst hotel experience of my life. Still here, last day, pretty happy to be leaving. I’ll be specific, hopefully it’ll be helpful to others as I can only assume they’re paying for 4-5* Tripadvisor/Google reviews

Rooms: Firstly, if you book a “family suite” you’ll be close to a mile away (across the other side of the marina) from the main hotel complex. The breakfast room in this part of the hotel has c10 tables for 64 rooms. The queue this morning was at least an hour wait. If you ask to take food to your room, they’ll charge you €20 per person to do so… they operate a golf buggy shuttle service from this part to the main complex. There’s usually one guy on duty, and it takes them like 10-15mins to do a round journey. So if you miss him, you’ll be waiting 15mins most of the time. But don’t wait in the shade indoors, because someone else will be queuing in front of you in the midday sun if you’re not waiting at the front…

That’s if they’re running at all. Regularly had to walk the kids the 0.8m distance at midday or midnight after a meal.

The rooms are atrocious. Honestly I can’t even be bothered to post the numerous broken parts or badly thought out layout (there are 2 seats on a balcony with a room occupancy of 4 people… why???), and the “mini bar” is 2 cokes (€3.50 for the tiny bottles), 2 super bock, and a sparkling water (€3). That’s it.

The cleaners picked up dirty towels, refolded them and rehung them - I know this, because one of my kids cleaned dirty feet after a beach trip and the same towel was back up the next day. The soap and shampoo dispenser wasn’t refilled once during our 7 night stay.

Amenities: The main swimming pool is salt water. I don’t mean salty like any normal sea, I mean it’s like the Dead Sea. It tastes like the salt lick before a tequila shot. Open your eyes at your peril. Kids went in once, and that was that. The beds are so close together you’re basically on someone lap.

The “family suite” complex (you know, the one nearly a mile away) has a freshwater pool. It’s about 30cms deep dropping to 1m. And it’s small. Oh, and the toilets are broken and shut. And there’s no bar. So you need a drink, you have to order room service. But only to your room. Which comes from the main complex. So I waited 25mins sat in the room to get a couple of diet cokes. Which cost €3.50 each. Charged on the spot, because they hadn’t advised us that to charge to your room, you need to “open a credit account” when you check in. So had to walk back down to the pool to get my wallet, with this room service guy following me with his card machine…

Bottle of water? €3.50. Only had one in the room when we arrived, never had a replacement provided, was charged for that one.

Restaurants: Main complex breakfast is ok (I.e. edible, with some variety). Get there at 8/8:30 though, otherwise it’s packed, there just aren’t enough tables for the hordes of people that this place tries but fails to cater properly for. 7:30-8am for the family room complex, otherwise expect at least a 20-30min wait to get a table and you’ll have to queue.

The (nice) bar was closed 50% of the time, and the T-bone restaurant bar doesn’t open until 6, so you’re forced to sit in the heat /sun of the “pool bar” (its a few tables outside a shack bar) if you want a pre-dinner drink before heading out of the hotel.

Summary: You couldn’t pay me to stay here again. Nothing in this place is easy. In fact it feels like it’s been designed to make everything as difficult as...

Entering my room, was happy to find a bottle of water (picture attached), BUT the metal lid was already unscrewing itself when trying to open it, without the obvious sound and feel of a sealed one. I HAVE TO MENTION THAT OUR FRIENDS BOTTLE FROM THE OTHER ROOM WAS SEALED, BUT OURS NOT, COMPARING THEM BOTH, BEFORE GOING TO RECEPTION. This is absolutely unforgivable, especially during Covid-19. It was 1 AM, wasting time back to the reception, instead of having a well-deserved rest! After a couple of minutes, a second bottle was delivered to my room, meanwhile unpacking, thinking that everything is ok this time. NO, it wasn't OK, because EVEN THE SECOND BOTTLE WAS LIKE THE FIRST ONE, ALREADY OPENED AND UNSCREWED. I went AGAIN to reception and explained that I received a second bottle, but still opened and left it on their desk, going directly to my room, without requesting anything else, as the receptionist started shouting at the employee, so didn't want to take part in this small fiasco. I appeased in the end my thirst with TAP WATER as it was safer to drink from the sink. After 10 minutes, the room phone started to ring looong, TWICE, in the middle of the night! Not only in our room, but in our friend's room, disturbing them also, for no reason. In the morning, our friend's room 065 had a powerful smell of drain, which was present even with the balcony door fully opened. My friend went to reception and explained the situation, describing it as a "funny smell". The receptionist acted like he didn't know English, so he came back in the room disappointed by the approach but encouraged him insist. Only after a SECOND ATTEMPT, he was granted a replacement room. I also went to reception to explain what happened and the receptionist tried to convince me that all bottles are the same! When suggesting that I can bring a bottle from the other room that is sealed, to compare, I also requested to speak with the manager. I waited in the lobby, where he wanted apparently to have maybe a short conversation standing up, but I kindly offered him a seat to discuss the matter calmly, when it should have been exactly the other way around, as I'm the Guest! After hearing my situation, Mr.Fran could only apologize a few times. I asked him, how can we resolve this situation? Because it's now check-out time and as my friends are on their honeymoon, we want to book another night, despite the problems encountered. His astonishing answer was: "Why do you still want to stay at our hotel for another night, if you didn't like your stay? The answer from a hotel general manager! I answered that my friends like the location, so I'm somehow obligated to book another night. I had the impression he wouldn’t want us to stay there anymore, as maybe we caused him so much trouble from two unsealed bottles and he answered that unfortunately the hotel is fully booked, but if I really want to, he can check the availability for both rooms for an extra night. Obviously, I checked hotels app, where an extra night was available, not only for one room, but for two! Is this how you make your clients come back? Asked if a compensation can be provided for the stress and time wasted caused not only in the night, but also in the morning, only apologies...

The hotel is in a good location and just a short walk away from the beach bars/ restaurants. Rooms were clean and spacious. Lovely breakfast with plenty of choice and they even had mimosas to enjoy each morning! Which my partner and I definitely took advantage of! Although the hotel is nice I was expecting a little more from the reviews I had read before we booked it. Luckily we found a cheap last minute deal due to it being the end of season. Had we booked mid summer for full price I would have been a little disappointed. But, I feel we got what we paid for in this instance...

Our room overlooked a beautiful harbour and we would have spent more time on the terrace if the outdoor seating was comfy. Each terrace had the worst patio furniture. We thought maybe ours were different to the other rooms as surely guests didn't like sitting out on them. But, we checked other rooms as we walked by and they were all the same. It was a shame as my partner and I like to enjoy a glass of wine on a evening but we couldn't sit and admire the view because it was too uncomfortable. I also asked at the restaurant if we were allowed to take some wine glasses back to our room. But they wouldn't allow this. So it was plastic cups or small tumblers to drink from. We arrived at the hotel at around 12:30/1 in the afternoon and asked at reception if our room was ready. The receptionist said it wasn't so, we waited around the pool for a hour or so. I then went back to ask if we could check in. Again, I was told it still wasn't ready. I sat in the lobby until 2:50 and went to ask again. It still wasn't ready. They eventually changed our room to a different one when they realised even 'they' wouldn't make our 3pm check in. We've never been to a hotel that we had to wait until on the dot to check in. So maybe our expectations were too high!? But when you've been traveling all day all you want to do is go to your room. For the rest of the holiday it was hard to tell if/ when room service would come. Some days they would come early and other days not until after 4. I also over heard some people at the bar saying they had been to their room after a full day out bike riding and they were still waiting for fresh towels etc. It seems there's no set times and I now see why our room wasn't ready when we arrived on our first day. It just felt a little inconvenient having to go and ask for fresh towels when we'd been out all day and would have like to come back to a clean room. I wanted to make use of the gym on one of the days. I lasted around 10 minutes as the Aircon was broken and it was hotter in there than outside. I called for the receptionist who sent the maintenance worker but, he couldn't get it to work. The sun loungers around the pool are very uncomfortable. On one of the days we went in search of a beach bar that had sun beds.

All in all, we had a good holiday and I like the hotel. I wouldn't say it's worth what they're charging peak season. I also wouldn't rush back unless we got a really good deal. I think if they made some small changes it could be...