Hotel Portum

Inside, the boutique hotel was clean and the people were nice, but the location really upset me. It’s in a low-income housing development, nowhere near the beach. As you walk in, residents’ clothes are hanging overhead from their apartments. For the same price, you could stay closer to the beach or in town.

The staff were extremely friendly and helpful, and the rooms are fairly nice. That’s why I gave it two stars. But the rooms aren’t soundproof at all. You can hear people talking outside your door, in the lobby, and in the breakfast area, and I didn’t get a good night’s sleep while I was there. It’s a strange place, set in the cellar of an apartment complex behind a gate. It’s a shame they invested in this location. It works if you have a car; otherwise, I’m not sure how you’d get to the city. It’s around a 35-minute walk, which is manageable unless you’re with older people or children. To me it’s a decent budget hotel, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.

I’m seeking a full refund for this booking and another transaction that I’ll dispute separately. Booking.com charged me £169.99 to cancel instead of returning my money in full. I called them several times, spent a long time on the phone, and sent screenshots, but they seemed to follow a script without considering what I’d been through. I booked through booking. Com for two nights with my family, checking in on 26 August. We arrived around 23:00 and couldn’t find the hotel. I left my family in the car while I went to ask some people for directions. They started charging me, so I ran back to the car and drove off. Later, I spotted what looked like a sign for the hotel and zoomed in with my phone. It was on the ground floor of a block of flats in a residential area. After reading reviews that mentioned the residential setting, including one saying someone had tried to break into a guest’s room the day before, I contacted booking. Com. Do not even think of booking this place.

After the first night, we asked to move rooms, but were told larger rooms cost extra. The bathroom was covered in unidentified goo and everything felt sticky. One electrical socket had been pulled out of the wall and didn’t work. The hotel, if you can call it that, is in a gated community, and getting in at night may be difficult. The windows leak, and we could hear dogs barking from 4 a.m. A terrible stay.