Jardim da Batalha Boutique Hotel by Shiadu — Hotel in Porto

Loved the breakfast and the staff. Whoever does the hiring for this place is exceptional because they seem to hire only great people. There is good and bad in this review. The bottom line is that I would stay there again. I can't say that about the places I stayed in Lisbon and Coimbra. Next time, I would stay in the newer section (probably ground floor). Let me start at the beginning. We arrived early from Coimbra. My driver looks at me and I look at him. He says, "how did you find this place, stay in the car, let me go in and check it out". It was the front door combined with construction on the street that gave off almost a skid row type of vibe. He went in the front door, looked around and came back to tell us it was ok. We entered and were greeted by a very young friendly guy named Andre. Andre is like the energizer bunny. During our stay, though he was busy 200% of the time, he never rushed us or made us feel we were stopping him from his tasks. One moment he was running to the store to satisfy a special need of a guest, the next moment he was wiping down and clearing tables. He never stopped. All the staff: Andre, Irina, Acosta, Pedro, Tony were helpful with recommendations for everything. As I said, we arrived early. Andre greeted us, saw my wife was using a cane and immediately changed our room to one next to the elevator that he thought would be easier for us. It was. He said there were some things left over from breakfast and if we'd like a snack, we could go to the breakfast area, which we did. My wife loved the hot drink machine and I loved the assortment of tea pastry and cake. Breakfast was included in our room price and was the best we had in Portugal. It is easily worth 15 Euro, by itself. Scrambled eggs are made freshly upon request. |Apparently, the same women who clean the rooms, arrive at 6am to start baking and preparing breakfast. They should be professional bakers.| My wife and I are accustomed to having a table next to our bed, so we explained that we were not happy with the lack of a bedside table. While we were having our snack, Andre magically produced a bedside table for each bed. The location is within walking distance to much of what you desire and plenty of restaurants. There is a wonderful gelato store around the corner and a great variety of flavors and a good number of tables. There is some famous hotdog store down the street (we did not partake). The hotel is environmentally aware with a number of environment friendly options and choices.||The bad: The street can be noisy at night, so I'd advise against a room in the front. The bathroom is very small, though larger than the bathroom we had in Lisbon. There should be a nightlight or something like that in the bathroom because it has glass doors. If you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the light will disturb the...

We've stayed here two days during our visit in Porto.

The hotel has a great location, it's basically in the city centre, very close to the train station and you've also got a tour bus stop about 2 minutes walk away. The place has two parts, one is in the classic building, the other is in the back garden, a newly built building with 2 floors. We've stayed in the outside one.

The room was spacious for two, had great design and had everything we needed. We also had a big balcony with some patio furniture. The room seems brand new and even though it doesn't affect us I like the fact that it's wheelchair friendly. The bed was soft and super comfortable, you could tell they went with quality furniture. The bathroom was pretty and everything was very clean. The room is in the back garden it was also very quiet. I was missing a socket next to my side of the bed (room 211), and maybe to adjust the water so one push actives the shower for at least 1 minute. Now you need to push the button every 10-20 seconds which can be a bit annoying (I'm all for saving water though).

The breakfast was great as well, maybe they could have had more selection but we both found things we liked. They had fresh fruits, cold cuts, pancakes, croissants and yoghurt. I would have liked to see more options for oatmeals, cornflakes, etc. You can also ask for scrambled eggs and orange juice. It would be nice if they'd put a paper on the tables telling you what you can order as it wasn't obvious at first. They also have some local, Portuguese food I didn't know (bread with some cinnamon on top). Again it would be nice if they'd put some signs for the not-so-obvious food. I would have also liked to see some pastel de nata on the menu as it's something very typical from here.

I'd also like to highlight how amazing the hospitality is in this place, the girls were extremely helpful and nice, they genuinely cared we had a great experience. So 5* to the ladies for customer service!

All in all, we really enjoyed our stay here and would definitely come back again! We visited during the pandemic at the end of August so we've got a great deal, maybe it's more expensive during normal, peak season.

Thanks for...

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend staying at this hotel. First – the showers. The system of the showers in all the rooms of this hotel is so annoying. You have to press hard the bottom in order to make the water flow; the water flows for 12 seconds; the water stops; you press hard again, and again, and again and so on. The shower becomes so tiring that you think twice before you take it. Very much not a "vacation shower experience". Second – My room had a maintenance problem, which caused a very severe noise at the room that prevented me to sleep. I reported the problem as soon as I entered to the room - but the reception refused the minimum of changing my room. This refusal was despite of the fact that the hotel was not full at all and there were other available rooms online in 3 different sites. Amazingly, I was only offered ear plugs (!) and then I was even accused of having light sleep (!!). Very offensive and rude. The day after, the hotel promised the problem is solved - but the at night the noise started all over again. In sum, second night without any sleep. This completely destroyed my vacation in Porto. And here is the worse part - they didn't even offer me any compensation or even a small gesture to make amend to having 2 sleepless nights on my vacation! nothing whatsoever. I even requested to leave the hotel, but they refused and said I can leave the hotel but without any refund, not even for the nights I didn't sleep because of the disturbing noise, and not even a partly refund. Not even a glass of wine. Instead, the hotel manager argued with me endlessly and even insulted me, blaming me of having "light sleep" and being "problematic" (even though the problem required maintenance teams twice so it was obviously not me!). I've never experienced any such bad service and bad hospitality in my life I thus I advise not...