Hotel NH Collection Porto Batalha — Hotel in Porto

Where „Postmen“ Always Greet You with Pleasure

Located in Porto's famous Batalha Square at the end of the city's probably most prominent pedestrian street Rua de Santa Catarina sophisticated NH Porto Batalha would not really look like what it is at first glance! No, it looks more like a palace that used to be the home of a wealthy family of winemakers. And before it was finally onverted into a hotel the building housed the city's General Post Office. Today this unique historic building literally welcomes its guests with elegant accomodations, a fine-dining restaurant and a number of wellness options such as a fitness center, sauna and a state-of-the-art indoor pool. During our stay we enjoyed an impressive view from our spacy guest room on the 4th floor from where we looked out on cosmopolitan Batalha Square with its numerous cafes and restaurants and on famous S. João National Theatre right accross the street. Unique interior decorations, such as magnified postmarks, photographs and handwritten postcards in public areas, guestrooms and even in the elevators remind guests of the buildings recent usage as a post office. Even „Herold Little“ (our company mascot) simply loved this hotels interior design so much that he insisted on being in one of the guest room pictures that we took for this review...:) This exclusive property has everything high-end guests might possibly expect: free WiFi in all areas, air condition, prim and proper private bathrooms with bathtub or shower, bidet, flat-screen satellite TV, a stylish restaurant and more. Nightlife and more traditional local dining places are just a short walk away from this outstanding NH Collection hotel. After a relaxing sleep a more than bountiful buffet breakfast helped us start our days and in the evenings we enjoyed some drink while socializing at the lobby bar.

As a tour operator we consequently received a positive feedback from our U.S. patrons that stayed here after we and our travel agents recommended NH Porto Collection to them. And believe it or not: None of them ever got lost so far after we equipped all self-driving guests with directions of our own composition from Porto Airport (like 12 mi. away) or from the freeway. Both the entire management and every staff seemed to be very dedicated to their mission, they all deserve their guests’ loyalty for their daily performance. Although busy most of the time each of them gave us their welcoming smiles to greet us with pleasure that made us feel like home. We at PHIL'S WORLD TRAVEL happily recommend this property to all...

I’ve had a “pleasure” of staying at this hotel for 2 nights. I must inform you that I am a proud member of GHA loyalty program with the maximum status which is possible - being titanium. That includes many-many benefits, which I’ll talk about a bit later.

My experience with this hotel started about a week before my actual stay. It was when my card was suddenly blocked due to a suspicious transaction - the hotel tried to charge me for the whole stay. After a complaint letter, I received an apology, and the next morning they tried to charge me once again. Quite an interesting approach.

The stay at this hotel started at around 14:00 on a Thursday. It was quiet, empty, not crowded at all. When providing the staff with me and my friends’ documents I was promised an upgrade - as per my status means providing a double upgrade. But, I was refused to have the room due to their “fully booked” situation. After coming back at the hotel at 15:30, I was finally given my room on the 4th floor. Spoiler alert: no upgrade was given. None. Not only that — I asked the staff for a split bed and selected this option while booking. After we approached the staff with the questions about the room and the lack of a welcome box (one of the benefits of being a GHA member), they decided it would be suitable to give us a worse room without a balcony, but with separate beds. We politely declined. And the “welcome box” was finally brought to us - it consisted of a small pack of bread sticks and a bottle of still water. In Corinthia Budapest, the welcome box consisted of small meals - meat, fish, bread, sweet desert, and a bottle of fine Hungarian wine. It may sound spoiled from my side, but loyalty and welcomeness is what you expect after being loyal and spending an enormous amount of money inside of a hotel alliance, instead of using Booking.com which takes up to 40% of hotel’s profits.

Anyways, the hotel itself is quite nice and modern, which you expect from a NH chain, yet very far away in all senses - for instance, from their hotel in Berlin on Friedrichstraße.

The view from our room was stunning, yet be aware that most rooms do not offer the luxury of such a view.

The room was clean and had all the amenities (some hotels in Portugal do not have that). Everything was working as supposed to.

Special thanks to the concierge for helping with our luggage and giving us advice.

And the only other advantage that comes to mind is the hotel’s location. Everything was within a walking distance, which is a great advantage when...

Really good hotel centered in old Town. The front desk was very helpful with information and recommendations, but Sara from guest relations was awesome. Ironically we never met face to face for the week but she was very responsive through messages and calls and made sure all our travel tours and restaurants were booked properly, made changes promptly and kept us informed regularly. The rooms are kind of small but nice. Breakfast is not included for any other high status membership such as Amex Plat which they are a part of its Hotel Collection reservation program. It is a reach to get the upgrade your eligible for, as it seemed the "nothing available" response was too quick and automatic. Especially since they sent us to the wrong room at first and had another room available immediately. I feel they don't even try to look for one. Anyways the pros are that its clean and safe and near everything. Porto hotdogs Gazela is outside the door and is very good. Never tried the hotel restaurant. Gym is like a Holiday inn gym off the freeway. Spa amd sauna is nice. "Collections" in their website denotes an extra touch, service, luxury. Didn't get that feel. I think they are more of their "NH Hotel" standard. No bellhop service, no offer of transportation assistance, only one person during morning checkout so there is a wait. cars could not park at the hotel anymore, so we had to walk around the corner with luggage to get an Uber. It would've been nice if they offered to help with the suitcases to the pick up point. I think they may have gotten used to full bookings that they may have lost that extra touch of service and...