Residencia Praia Norte - AL

The bedroom has nice decor, and there’s also a pleasant picnic and smoking area. For $30 a night, this is a great hotel, as long as you’re not expecting four-star standards. We didn’t like the black sheets and would have preferred white ones. The kitchen is fully equipped, with coffee, tea, chocolate, milk and fruit, plus a microwave and fridge. It’s almost enough to count as a light breakfast. You can walk up to the high part of the city and the lighthouse, or drive to the beach in five minutes. There’s plenty of parking.

RPN is close to Praia de Norte, where the waves are impressive, though you can’t swim there. The apartment worked well for our group on a budget, with two bedrooms, a spacious living room and kitchen, and a really nice bathroom. The weather was foggy, cold and windy, so the air inside felt damp and sometimes a little smelly.

The hotel staff are incompetent and don’t seem friendly. The girl at reception behaved hysterically, so we couldn’t resolve any issues with the staff. They canceled our reservation on the checkout day, which meant we couldn’t leave a review through the booking site. The conditions clearly said payment was due on arrival, but they charged my card in advance. The hotel doesn’t follow its booking conditions. The room was old, dirty, dusty and moldy. The bathroom smelled damp and moldy, there was dirt under the toilet rim, and it felt scary to sit on it because of the poor cleaning. The shower had rust and a broken showerhead, so the water pressure was weak. Sometimes the toilet wouldn’t flush and needed fixing. There was almost nowhere to put anything: no table, just a small shelf and a windowsill, plus one chair. The double room had a small closet with no hangers. It smelled musty inside, so we didn’t use it. There was air conditioning but no remote, and the Wi-Fi was unstable. You can’t really see the sea, which is far away behind lots of trees and houses. All the hotel windows face the road, with lots of cars and people. On Friday night, a festival went on until 2 a.m. You definitely won’t sleep, and exhaust fumes came right through the window. The location was inconvenient too: the sea and anything interesting are below the cliff, while the hotel is up on it, far from shops, cafes and the funicular. You need the funicular to get down to the sea, and it costs 1.5 euros per ride. The terrace is only available to private rooms, which isn’t clearly stated anywhere. We believe we aren’t the only ones who’ve had this experience, because the hotel doesn’t live up to its rating. In response to the hotel's reply, what they said is completely false. Dear Tiago, aren't you afraid of being sued for libel? I'm sure the legal authorities, as a third party, will notice this and bring charges against the hotel. The staff blame guests without justification to avoid lowering their rating. We strongly do not recommend staying here.

We stayed in about 12 places on our Portugal trip, and this was the only really disappointing one. The bathroom cleaning could have been better. Maybe we were unlucky, but we ran into two roaches during our two-night stay. There was also no shampoo and not enough hangers in the closet. When we politely mentioned what could be improved, the management retaliated with all sorts of wild accusations that we had damaged the place or gone into private areas. We hadn’t done either. Some employees were quite nice, but the management team was completely crazy. I’d avoid this place at all costs.