Menina da Ria Guest House

I had an exceptional experience. The place was super clean, in an excellent location, and I loved how friendly the staff were. I’ve read some complaints that I honestly can’t understand. People complain about a shared bathroom, even though it’s clearly mentioned while making the booking, and they go ahead and reserve anyway.

The price felt high for what we got. There were four of us in a very small room, with no closet or TV, and the bathroom was shared with other rooms. We had access to a shared kitchen and garden, but they used COVID as the reason for not serving breakfast. How does that make sense when the bathroom is shared? There’s no parking either. This was in summer 2021. It was very clean, the staff were attentive, and the location was good, almost in the city centre.

The hostel was very tidy and clean, centrally located, and great value for money. I wasn’t all that impressed by Aveiro itself. There’s the boat ride through the canal, but we found it a huge letdown. I’d rather spend a day at the beach in Costa Nova.

We’d booked more than a month ahead, but when we arrived, they said they were full and blamed a Booking.com error. That doesn’t ring true to me, since they could have contacted us during that month. Instead, they sent us to another hostel that was very old and badly located, far from the canal. The man was rude and acted like we owed him everything. He also tried to give us less money back than we’d paid. He said he had no more money, then pulled bills from his pocket when he saw we wouldn’t accept less. The service was appalling. Be careful, you could arrive and find there’s no room, then have to scramble for somewhere at the last minute.