Jen Fraser
The hotel is in a fantastic location, staff polite and breakfast fantastic. However, we were very disappointed with our room. We emailed ahead of our stay to be sure we had a room big enough to sleep 3 adults. We were assured this would be the case. Our room had two single beds and a pull out bed that was extremely small, so very uncomfortable and made our 3rd adult feel like they were sleeping in a drawer on the floor!
Denis Dubos
We were very much looking forward to our stay at the Vila Gale Ampalius, and where bitterly disappointed by the service and set up of the hotel! ☹️
It all started with our arrival and the fact that the hotel parking was full yet the receptionist told us that our parking position in front of the hotel was free of charge and we could stay there. Thank God, we double checked and found out that it was a paying parking and we would have risked a fine of €30-€150. We asked to be put on the waiting list for the hotel parking since people are checking out daily and never heard back for the following four days. So our daily routine was to look for change to pay our outside parking which is payable 7 days a week from 09:00am to midnight!
It then continued with a complete disaster at the breakfast with a 30 m queue every morning (see picture), as well as the daily room cleaning which did not happen between us leaving at 8-9 AM and returning at 3-4 PM but then knocked at our door when we were taking a rest and asked us to leave within the next 10 minutes, as they needed to do it NOW!
The next challenge is the outdoor pool which has probably around 130 to 150 sunbed (my guess) which for a hotel with 357 rooms and probably over 800 visitors in the high season is far from enough and leads to people putting the wake up call in the morning to go down and reserve the sunbed, which remain then empty with their towels for hours….all due to a poor capacity planing :-( (see picture of empty poolside beds by 10:00 am). As an alternative, we decided to try the indoor pool and purchased some shower caps to find out that it was very small and had only 8 sunbeds so roughly one per 100 residents….. overcrowded too as a consequence! 😫
Finally, the most amazing detail was when we asked why the safe wasn't working and were notified that it was not activated and we had to pay extra daily to use it….. for the high price of the daily rate of the hotel, this seems absolutely absurd!
The only three pluses are clearly the location directly by the beach, the sea view (at least from our room) and the fact that you can go by foot to the marina and its restaurants and shops. that is all, apart from that, there are clearly better option for that money in the area in my humble opinion! 🤔
Elizabeth Sayers-Birdee
Went for a short break. I would recommend when booking you ask for a sea view. The first room we had overlooked the Mariner which is lovely however there is a very noisy beach bar there and it would have been impossible to stay in that room. Fortunately we were offered a much better room, we did pay to upgrade our room but it was well worth it. One thing I hadn't realized when booking is that each room has a level of cooking facilities. Our final room even had a full oven! The staff here are very helpful our 2 favorites were Ricardo and Miguel. The breakfast offering is ok but nothing exciting and could probably do with a rethink. Less but better quality would be my suggestion. We only ate in the restaurant one night the day we arrived. We ate out at night in the Mariner area.
There are 3 pools here, one for the kids and the children seemed to love the entertainment team. The pool bar does a good choice of salads and sandwiches, Carlos was the main man we saw the most. Very helpful. There were a lot of golfers staying whilst we were there and also a lot of Portuguese people all in all I enjoyed my stay here and would consider returning in the future.
Mark Webb
Pleasant hotel, looks nice, and is kept clean to a good standard.
Rooms to the front and side facing carpark better, rooms facing casino, fine but with small balcony, and you can see everyone else, I felt low hand rail.
Breakfast decent choices and quite comprehensive.
Good swimming pools, with beds ,and a cafe/bar. No adult entertainment, (except one night, when in seemed to be a pub quiz in Portuguese) but childrens entertainment, up till about 11pm.
Excellent Italian restaurant and cafe, on the outside of the hotel and would recommend them. We were B&B so do not know about eating in the hotel.
John B
This is an OK no-frills hotel. Don't expect any luxury here. The pools are old-fashioned with a shortage of sunbeds. The themed BBQ events are good with limited entertainment. We would not return here, as it offers poor value.
My Booking
