Amazonia Estoril Hotel

We booked the suite for 575 euro a night, but the state of the place was a shock. The plastic floor looked decades overdue for replacement. The “chill couch” had stains all over it and looked too filthy to touch. The plants were dead and dusty. The site pictures gave us a very different impression. The bed was clean and comfortable, and I slept well. The shower was great too, tall enough for me at 2 meters, with water that could get very hot. The towels were clean, new, and soft. I also liked that they let us choose whether to have towels replaced daily, which is the first time I’ve had that option in Portugal. That improved my view of the hotel, so I raised the rating from one to three stars. Breakfast was good, especially the wonderful croissants, and the coffee machine uses real beans. But there’s no espresso option, so people take just the first part of an Americano, wasting coffee and water. The seating is all for two, which is odd when you’re a party of four. There’s also a stained couch in the breakfast area that looks filthy and is uncomfortable after 15 minutes. The whole area is white and very outdated. Then we returned to find they’d taken all our towels and left new ones, despite the card saying they were protecting the environment. That took away the third star. I can’t give it more than two. Don’t book this place.

The pictures make the place look much better than the run-down reality, and the whole stay was a disaster. In the middle of the night we spent an hour at reception trying to check in, only to have to repeat the process the next morning. Breakfast staff were extremely unfriendly. The next day we lost another hour of our holiday because our room doors had been blocked after we were wrongly accused of not paying for the second night. Please don’t stay here if you want a nice, relaxing holiday.

Met friends here from Sweden. The price for four-star accommodation was incredibly reasonable.

The balcony looked out over a car park and disused buildings, which made for the worst view I’ve had. Breakfast was just as disappointing: scrambled eggs, mostly cold, some odd bacon that was really warm cooked ham, and toast that took 10 minutes to turn light brown and tasted stale. I’ll never come back or recommend it.