Vila Gale Opera Reviews

Booked here as had a conference to attend . Some positives: large clean lobby and excellent breakfast buffet. Very close walk to the conference centre if thats your destination. It ends there. Front desk staff: interested in your concerns/wanting to help, and ability to speak in English was highly variable depending on the person at the desk. The smell: the hallways near by and the elevators all smelled very bad-almost like sewage. The noise: We did not sleep for 3 days. The windows in our room seemed not to be sealed well, we heard traffic, trains , and wind constantly. We noted in the hallway noise came through one of the windows but not the rest, which is why we think the seals in the window rooms were simply broken.! In addition the air-conditioning units near the ceiling were very noisy EVEN when they were OFF you heard wind or outside noise going through the vents of the units. The remote to turn on the air-conditionning didnt work. It doesn't help that there is a train overpass that essentially passes right over the top of the hotel!! Lighting: we paid for a jr suite so that we could work in the room; that was IMPOSSIBLE due to the lighting (and noise) . One could not find a spot in the room with enough light to be able to read or work unless you stood under the window midday, so we had to go down to the lobby to work...negating the expense we incurred to pay for the suite. The area rug in the suite was also hazard, it had no underpaid and slipped constantly across the floor; we tripped more than once ! BRING YOUR OWN TOILETRIES! They provide a pump of hand gel in the bathroom and a pump of handgel=shampoo in the shower-no face soap, no conditioner. Their excuse was "environmental"...I dont buy it--they could have put three pumps in the shower as I've seen elsewhere: body wash, shampoo, conditioner to avoid packaging issues...Multiple attendees from different countries who were at the conference had to run to a nearby pharmacy to buy hair products and soap!!! Having to do that was a first for me after decades of travelling, . We stayed at multiple hotels during this trip to Portugal, all 4 star hotel-this did not compare in the least. When you had a question you had a phone to call the front desk, they never answered despite numerous attempts; we also saw the phones ringing and no one answering when we were at the front desk.