Charm Inn Sintra

There’s a nice courtyard with sun loungers, a pool, and a little seating area. Inside, the design is beautiful and cosy, and everything was very clean. It’s a charming, stylish boutique hotel in a great location, with a delicious breakfast. Highly recommended.

We chose this place mainly because it was near the wedding venue. The breakfast room has a charming old Victorian feel, and the buffet is simple but has everything you need. Our street-facing room was relatively quiet. Restaurants and Sintra centre, with all the palaces, are within walking distance. There’s also a pool and an outdoor space with loungers that’s great for relaxing. The problems were in the room: there was a strong damp smell and visible mold, and the Wi-Fi didn’t work at all there. Staff were around at check-in, but afterwards we didn’t see anyone at reception, only the kitchen staff.

Room 4 smelled strongly, and using lots of perfumed cleaning products to cover it up made the smell even worse. There was mold on the inside of the water bottle cap. I woke up feeling nauseous and left as soon as I could.

The rooms smelled strongly of damp and showed signs of mold. The property is beside a very busy road, so it was noisy. Check-in was 1.5 hours later than stated because there was no staff available. My young family couldn’t stay in a place with that damp odour, so we found somewhere else and lost £300. I was very disappointed. We trusted Booking.com’s description because the hotel is rated well there. Had we known about these issues, we wouldn’t have booked.