Grande Real Santa Eulalia Hotel – Albufeira – Algarve

We were a little disappointed by the Grande Real hotel in Albufeira – it clearly only gains it’s five star rating due to the facilities it offers such as the spa etc. Whilst the public areas are extremely nice & well kept, the room we had was rather tired looking with the carpet well worn & stained & the furniture was marked in places. Other rooms we saw looked to be similar.

The TV has only a limited number of English channels (2 x news / sport / music & a movie channel with Portuguese subtitles) and pay-per-view films were also available. Free wifi is available in the rooms & the speed was acceptable. The mattress on the bed was very hard so we complained after our first night. The solution was to change the mattress for an older one & put a continental quilt on the top! It did offer a slight improvement but we still woke up every morning with some discomfort.

We stayed on a Bed & Breakfast basis & whilst the food for breakfast was good, it was let down by it only being just warm & on one particular morning it was old. It made no difference whattime you went down for breakfast either and to further compound the problem, no hot plates are available. This is the first hotel I have stayed in that do not offer hot plates for a hot buffet.

Drink prices are reasonable for a 5* hotel & service from the bar staff was excellent. The pool area was quiet during our stay and consequently there were plenty of sunbeds available. There are steps down to the beach area which is nice but it is a public beach that gets busy every day.

The hotel location is around 2-3 minutes walk up a slight hill to the main gates from reception, past the apartments of the resort, then a 15/20 minute walk to the start of the restaurants & bars on Albufeira’s Strip. It would be a further 20 minute walk to the Old Town.

The times of the hotel shuttle bus did not really suit us in the evening as the last one leaves at 18:20, so we walked in most nights or took a taxi to the Old Town & a taxi back. The local bus however does stop outside the hotel gates & there is a bus around 19:20- 19:30 that will drop you near to the Old Town with just a walk down the steep hill, but a taxi is more convenient.

It is a great shame about the issues raised, as this could be a lovely hotel. It appears that the management do respond to issues raised rather than identifying & dealing with them in the first place. The home journey was a package holiday nightmare. Despite getting to the airport 2.5 hours before departure & being first in the queue, we still had to have seats allocated by Thomson. We always prefer aisle seats near to the front but ended up with a window & middle halfway down the plane.