Azores Horta Apartments

The friendly staff were a real plus. Caesar handled my checkout and was great. The hostel has nicely decorated interiors, comfortable modern beds, good showers, lovely views, and useful extras like a kitchen and a rooftop area for relaxing or smoking. Breakfast is included, though it’s very basic, with little or no hot food. There are a couple of things that need attention. The lift is extremely slow and seems unreliable. In the second-floor bathrooms, the shower door can’t be opened from inside, and the lights have gone out while I was showering three times, leaving me in complete darkness until I got out, opened the door, and waved for the sensor. That felt unsafe. I’d still recommend staying here because the good points outweigh these problems, and I hope the feedback leads to fixes. Thanks for a nice stay!

We got what I’m pretty sure was the best room, Dornier X, and the service was just as good. The recently renovated building is beautiful and stylish, with lovely high ceilings, and it’s right beside the marina. The room was better than some five-star hotel rooms or suites I’ve stayed in. It’s also an impressive historic building, kept authentic and tastefully done. There aren’t many places like it around, and I loved the whole experience. Thank you!

The views are hard to beat, and the staff were friendly. I hope the early problems get sorted out, because I’d happily give this place five stars if they are. As an aviation fan, I loved the room interiors: old aircraft pictures, little notes about each plane’s history, and a Boeing 314 Clipper keychain with the room number on the back of its wings. But the single elevator was very slow and got stuck with guests inside. We were told it was newly installed and should work fine, but we avoided it for the rest of our stay. The air conditioning only cooled the room for about an hour before stopping, so I’d wake up drenched in sweat and have to turn it on again. The small 3D-printed Clipper keychains are a great idea, but the wings with the room numbers broke off my keychain on the first day while it was in my bag or pocket. The same happened to my friends’ keys. The hotel may end up replacing them after every stay, so cast metal planes might hold up better.

For anyone booking a dorm bed, the good points are the location, the design, and the balcony where you can relax with a nice view of Pico. The shared men’s dorm has just one bathroom and shower, and it doesn’t lock, so there’s no real sense of privacy. There was no hand soap and not much toilet paper. The elevator is tiny, very slow, and unventilated, and reaching the dorms means climbing all the way to the fourth floor. The kitchen isn’t very useful for cooking: it has only a small fridge, kettle, microwave, and toaster, with no tea or coffee provided. At night the men’s room AC resets itself to 28 degrees Celsius, which makes sleeping hard when it’s hot. My mattress lacked back support and felt unstable, and the blankets were oddly small, about the size of the bed. The breakfast is basic, and the coffee is watery and bad. There’s a café at the hotel next door, which made it feel like guests were expected to eat there. The storage compartments above the top bunks are also set very high and hard to reach. I hope the hotel and hostel take these points into account and improve things for guests in the dorm rooms.