Hotel Soares Neto — Hotel in Velas

My room was very nice and had recently been renovated. It was very tastefully decorated with lilac wallpaper with a silver etched rose design and grey doors. The bedding was reversible, purple one side, lilac the other. Excellent double glazed windows and shutters. The bathroom had also been renovated and had a large walk in shower. Problem was it seemed to be a work in progress as there were not fittings: no toilet roll holder, hooks, towel rails or shelf. Absolutely nowhere to put anything. Unfortunately, they had gone for design over practicality and had installed what I call a 'tsunami' sink. One of those oblong sinks that are a mere 3 inches deep, so it can only hold 2 inches of water. Almost impossible to get your hands in the water, let alone a flannel! And the slightest agitation of the water causes a tsunami effect. The result being very wet feet and a very wet bathroom floor!!! I gave up and washed under a running tap! One disappointment was that the hotel does not have satellite TV! I have stayed in hotels and residencials in many places in Portugal and the Azores, and I have never stayed in one that has no satellite TV. There were just 5 Portuguese channels, not even BBC World News or CNN! Thank goodness for my iPad, though the WiFi was a little temperamental! Breakfast was the usual for most residencials:- cheese (at least it was the tasty local Sao Jorge cheese and not the plastic stuff!), plastic ham, bread, butter, jam. No cereals or fruit. And none of the food was covered which is not hygienic. The few staff that I saw were friendly. When I checked out I was a little annoyed to be told that the credit card machine was out of order, so I had to quickly walk to the nearest ATM to get money to pay my bill for the five nights I had stayed. My room faced the church, but with my ear plugs in situ, the shutters closed and windows open as it was quite warm, the chiming didn't keep me awake. I must mention my wonderful taxi driver! Antonio Ramos of Queimada, Manadas, 918256481, picked me up at the airport, and I decided to book him on two days for morning tours around the island. He was friendly, helpful, good company, took me to all the viewing points and places of interest. His English is not quite fluent, but much better than my Portuguese! I can highly...

Didn't choose to stay here, but our tour group ended up in this hotel as there was a problem confirming the hotel we should have been staying in. However, the hotel was beyond bad. Small rooms with limited storage space, and no air conditioning, meant we needed to open the windows for air - the hotel should at least provide a fan for every room as standard (but don't ). Ground floor rooms not overlooking the harbour are at street level, very noisy late into the night and insecure. We eventually settled in room 3 (overlooking the harbour), but as a previous reviewer mentioned nearly a year ago the black out shutter is broken. Cockroaches frequently seen in the corridors. Swimming pool obviously not cleaned in some time. Rusty fittings in the bathroom . Seems there's no maintenance been carried out for some time. Breakfast very basic. 3 nights with little sleep. Only good thing was the shower worked well. Would recommend finding another hotel if you...

This is a quiet, simple hotel, that had everything we needed. Our room was small, and overlooked the harbour. In the evening we could hear the birds in the harbour. The bed was comfortable, but the furniture was a little dated. The bathroom was very modern and everything worked well. Everything was clean. To enter our room, we had to go down a long hallway that often felt very dark after being in bright sunshine, even though it was reasonably well lit.||||The outdoor pool was a little chilly (it was late September) but some of our group did enjoy a refreshing dip. For some reason, they emptied and refilled the pool twice over the 3 days we were there. We enjoyed sitting by the pool and enjoying a beer.||||Breakfasts had good variety and plenty of food available. ||||The hotel is centrally located, just a few blocks from several restaurants, and the neighbourhood felt safe...