Parque Terra Nostra — Hotel in Povoação

By the description and common sense - using thermal water by kids is highly not recommended as their heart rate is much higher than ours, so not needed to push further... -, you'd think it's a calm environment. There are even rules to make it happen. Unfortuntately adult human beings can't control themselves - and/or their kids - and there is no staff to do so.

So the pool is everything, but calm. Screaming, jumping kids, yelling tourist groups, splashy playing teenagers. By my standards extremely far from tranquility.

Shop is very small and few item - missing the opportunity to buy seeds or bulbs -, but at least quality and mostly authentic. rubber slippers from China are just there for a bad example, so you appreciate more the rest. ;-)

Lack of information all over - I am a deep traveler, for country hoppers or mass tourists might be enough, butus, who travel for deep, meaningful experiences, learning, connecting, information is a huge value -, the map is accurate as a 7 yrs old phlegmatic personality kid would have drawn it.

The garden itself is very nice, mass tourists challenge the experience, but I was lucky, just crossed a few of them.

Prohibiting things lately does not work and in a way I understand why - crazy lot irrationa, invalid and untrue laws and rules are in the developed world, so people are right to questioning and not following. But I have years of experience of informing people deeply changes things in seconds and most of them understands. the 15% idiots needs to fined very badly to keep them behind "fences".

I'd definitely put a decent amount of effort (knowledge, time, money) to inform people about why we don't pick up things, move them, leave them behind - garbages!!! In quite a short time will pay back the investment with less effort to maintanenca damages - HR, tools, knowledge, etc...

On the other hand the park could/would/should offer guided tours. Americans love it and deep travelers also - different needs, but can be done. Leads to a decent income - maybe as a backpacker who collected garbages from paths I would not need to pay 16€ for the experience while a millionaire has the same fee from a very different source and approach -, deeper understanding, more employment - opportunity for tourists to connect locals deeper, locals to see the world through these guests - and might help to lead towards a better quality tourism in mass.

Public facilities - toilets, bars - are surely not enough.

And as a regenerative designer I found shocking things in the bush - I can't find any valid, rational, true excuse to burn any gold (green manure) in a bothanical garden, if there is, I'd be extremely grateful to understand what might that be. Still tickets had been printed in mass amount and never been used, not included for sure.

I also thought the opening hours are soooooo short to do the maintenance jobs before and after to guarantee tranquility. what a misunderstanding! NON-STOP stihl trimmers running gives a strange keynote to your visit.

All together, as a nature lover I was happy to visit, but opportunities and sources could be used in a much better way with quite small effort. Hope someone reads this and takes my observations and comments into consideration.

And google should fix the issue to mark this place as a hotel, which is a couple of 100...

The gardens and baths themselves are lovely but it’s not set up at all well for visitors’ needs, particularly the changing rooms/toilets/lockers.

You can’t book online, so there’s a long queue to get in. We got there at opening time and still waited about 15 minutes to be sold a ticket by not very friendly or welcoming staff. No info about the park given, just a QR code to download a map. Signage onsite is bad and doesn’t match the map, so navigating is hard!

Food offering massively lacking - very fancy and expensive sit down restaurant/bar or tiny van with two tables offering expensive sandwiches. Quite mean when the website expressly forbids you to bring in a picnic…

There were only 4 women’s toilets for the hundreds of people in the park, and no private changing rooms. The newly built communal changing room is small and awkwardly laid out with benches right in front of the lockers and all curved and open, so no corners to hide in if you’re not a fan of getting naked with strangers. Only 6 showers (bearing in mind the thermal water is very dark so you need a good rinse afterwards to stop clothes being stained when you get dressed again). The two ‘private showers’ have frosted glass doors and no hooks/benches so no chance of getting your undies on with a bit of privacy. Lack of privacy in changing rooms means lots of people choose to change in the toilets, creating a massive queue.

The lockers can only be used by scanning a QR code that took three attempts to get to work, then tried to charge us €25 euro to use a locker, not letting us choose the €4 2 hour option. So we just took our stuff with us, which was also a bit stressful trying to keep an eye on it in a very busy park.

Although I did enjoy the warm water and pretty gardens, it’s the first place I’ve visited on Sao Miguel where I felt like a sucker tourist, being charged a lot of money relative to the price of everything else on the island. Stressing about changing and toilets negates the relaxing thermal waters…

It’s also worth considering that on a hot day getting in 40 degree water is actually not that appealing. I think it would be lovely on a cool day but it was 25 degrees and we were baking in the water! If it’s a hot day and you’re just going for the waters not the gardens, I’d give it a miss. Poco de Beja spa is the one to go for if you’re after a lovely thermal bath (which also has a cool water bath...

We visited around 2pm and it was not horribly crowded. They are currently doing a lot of construction- and two of the jacuzzis (thermal baths) were closed. That, mixed with all of the horrible reviews I read about the changing rooms and the facilities- we decided ahead of time to not swim in the main pool. I have to say - the changing rooms, bathrooms, showers - while obviously a temporary structure - were not as disgusting or dirty as all the reviews mentioned. I’ve definitely seen worse in the U.S. There was even an employee cleaning the sinks when we visited.

I saw no cigarette butts or anything gross in the water. I would have felt totally comfortable changing, showering, and taking a dip in the pool.

There were a lot of people relaxing in the pool and alongside the pool - but it didn’t feel crowded.

The lack of lockers doesn’t really seem to be a problem as you can just leave your stuff on the side.

Around 4/4:30 when the parks close there was a line for the changing rooms/showers and I can see how that might get dirty and annoying … but plan to leave/change before closing time and I think you’d be fine.

The gardens themselves are phenomenal. Every twist and turn revealed a new delight. It truly is a tropical paradise. This is a must visit if you are in Furnas

We were able to walk to the park from where we were staying - but there is parking on the street adjacent to the park and on Rua Das Areias which is kind of behind the park (maybe a 5-7 min walk)

There is also a cheese/ice cream/cafe on the corner of Rua Das Areias leading up to the park which was a big hit with us.

The restaurant at the Terra Nostra Garden Hotel was excellent- amazing service and delicious food. Make...