LeL Madalena GuestHouse

The rooms are spacious for private rooms in a shared accommodation, and they have what you need. The beds were okay, though not especially comfortable. The building is clearly old, with thin walls, so you can hear coughing, pipes, and water, especially at night. If you’re sensitive to light while sleeping, bring an eye mask. The AC units work really well and run fairly quietly, but their temperature display is so bright it lights up the whole room at night. That’s a mild downside, and better than having no AC. The bedding and towels aren’t changed and the bed isn’t made daily, so the rubbish bins aren’t emptied either. As a Canadian, that was frustrating because we flush toilet paper at home, but the plumbing here doesn’t allow it, so I would have preferred daily tidying when needed. Things seemed fine until I spotted a decent-sized bug while packing. I’m from Canada and we have creepy crawlies too, but there was also a large dead bug by the front entrance near the stairs that hadn’t been removed during the few days we’d been there. I’m not sure how common bugs are in Portugal, but that was by far the worst part for me. The stay wasn’t bad overall, maybe a 2.5 or 3 out of 5.

The location was the one bright spot, since it was convenient. Getting to the room was a mess, though. I booked one night through Agoda and no one told me check-in was at building 179, so I hauled my heavy bags up and down the street before finding it. The guesthouse at 128 has no lift, though fortunately it’s only one floor up. The room smelled so bad when I walked in that it was almost suffocating. The street was too noisy to leave the balcony doors open, and the sheets made me itch. There was just one bottle of water, and I couldn’t get another. A pantry had some tea and coffee bags, and that was all. A terrible experience.

The pipes rattled whenever we ran the water, and ants were on the shelf by the window. Our room was extremely small and the shower leaked. We arrived without any way to get in because Expedia hadn’t sent an email or text with access details.

After finding mold in two different rooms, we decided we couldn’t stay at LeL Madelena Guesthouse. We checked in on March 21 for four days in Lisbon. At first the room just smelled odd, and opening the windows didn’t help. On the second day we saw green mold in the bathroom ventilation, reported it to reception, and were moved. That night, after closing the internal shutters, we found mold in the new room too. On March 23, we spoke with a manager at reception. His attitude was poor, and he took no responsibility. He made it sound as though we were at fault and they had done everything possible. We’d paid a lot for the accommodation, and mold in the room shouldn’t have been an issue. He offered yet another room, but after two moldy rooms we didn’t want to remain there. He said we could request a refund through hotels.com, but couldn’t say how much. We contacted hotels.com, who reached out to the owner, but the owner refused to refund anything. They offered us a room at another guesthouse 30 minutes from the city center, which wasn’t comparable to the room we’d originally booked. Two nights in two rooms with mold and very poor customer service made this a bad experience. I’d advise people to stay away from LeL Madelena Guesthouse.