EPIC SANA Algarve Hotel

We spent one week at the EPIC SANA for a relaxing week. We are a couple in the mid thirties who have stayd at many luxury hotels and are therefore a bit sophicsticated Here are our pluses and minuses for the EPIC SANA: + Absolute silence in general - no street noise anywhere + There are daybeds in the park near the cliffs in the middle of rosmarin plants - very nice + The Yoga lesson and other activities are for free and are done by experienced trainers + There is a separate family hotel within the area + The food - especially the meat at dinner is very good + The personel is extremely friendly and is always smiling + There is enough personel everywhere + The rooms are furbished in a very modern style and everything is new - the rooms are very nice + Hotel is situated directly at the cliffs - great location + the hotel has a very big area with a big park-like garden - very nice + Very good and long eating hours - both for breakfast (until 11:00 o'clock) and dinner (until 22:30 o 'clock if I remember correctly) + air conditioning in the room + Guests disperse well across the whole hotel - there are no areas where you have the feeling that it is totally crowded Areas for improvement: => Reactivity of room service is very bad - if you ask reception for something that room service needs to do it happens with 30% probability. Examples: the Nespresso capsules for the coffeee machine were not replenished - we asked twice but got no replenishment - only on the next day. => The gardening staff love their chain saws - out of the 7 days we stayed there was chainsaw noise on 3 days. They do not respect the guests but cut the bushes the whole day - when you stay at the pool they cut near the pool at the best pool time in the afternoon - when you stay in your room after breakfast they cut near your room. On 2 days there was chainsaw noise THE WHOLE DAY! We never experienced anything like this before ina 5 star hotel! => Room service not quite immaculate - the glass windows in the shower were a bit smeared - I clean mine at home better, also they repeatedly did not provide a pen at the desk => Room service does not do what they should do: After 4 days we placed the card on the bed to exchange the linen - they did not do it => Attention of waiters at breakfast is not good! We repeatedly tried obnociously to get their attention for a coffee refill but even if we said quite loudly "excuse me", they just ignored us - this is unbelievable - one time I went to the waiters table and took the coffee pot myself and served myself - still much better than trying 3 times and waiting 10 minutes to receive a cup of coffee => We wanted a change of mattress, because we are not used to sleeping on one big mattress but on 2 mall ones - this was not possible and we had to change the room - in other 5 star hotels where we stayed this was no problem => More fruits for breakfast (e.g. banana, apple, strawberries, blueberries missing) => More vegetables for dinner - there was only always one single pot of vegetables at the buffet => Substitute plastic spoons (e.g. coffe spoons, desert spoons in plastic) => Don't serve the latte machiato in the same glasses like beer => Provide real ceramic dished for the icecream - not the cardboard bowl => No pillow menu => Bacon at breakfast is not good - not crispy at all - just put a level of toasted bread below the bacon so that it does not swim in fat

Overall we thought the Epic Sana was outstanding. Any negatives I raise below are minor points to an overall excellent stay. Positives Our Suite Home One Bedroom apartment was massive, very clean and modern with a lovely big balcony with table, chairs, and sunloungers. Modern kitchen with all essentials including a Nespresso coffee machine (complemetary pods as well as bottled water and chocolates daily) my husband made good use of. The direct access to the beach (lots of stairs but no problem for us) was great, the manicured grounds are lovely. There are enough seating areas that I'm pretty sure every guest could sit out at the same time and there would still be space! Although we did notice that the daybeds are only for hire which seems a bit cheeky given the price you are already paying. The food was outstanding, a big variety you could have soup, lots of types of bread (including gluten free), fish, meat, cheese salads, pasta. The desserts were amazing. Breakfast was always the same but a big variety available every day. As a Vegan I would have liked a few more options (things like cooked veg topped with bacon aren't ideal) but to be fair if I had asked they would have cooked me something specific and they had soya yoghurts and soya milk available. We didn't realise when we booked Bed and Breakfast this included Brunch at the Lima bar. On arrival I would think brunch was a light lunch but it was a full meal. There were hot dishes, salads and puddings (including healthy options such as fruit). I highly reccomend Lima bar, it's really a top rate restaurant as the service was excellent. One day we asked reception about hiring a car and within 30 minutes we had a nice car for 3 days! Family friendly points Our suite was very minimal which meant there were no door handles on cupboards. If you have a toddler you will get that this saved our sanity from our daughter slamming doors the whole time. The rooms are partitioned with slide doors which again is great as we could shut an area off and she couldn't open it. We had a bathroom (off the bedroom) with bath and shower AND a shower room off the main living space which was great as we could shower or use the loo once our toddler was asleep in the only bedroom and not disturb her. The staff were very friendly and there were plenty of staff. Everyone from the housekeeping to the door staff said Hello (our daughter says Hiya to everyone at the moment and got lots of smiles and waves in return). In particular we spent a lot of time in the Lima bar, special mention Vasolo, Miguel, Jessica and Isobel who were very attentive and friendly to our daughter and made us feel very welcome and relaxed despite our toddler throwing food, not eating bits and generally creating the big mess that toddlers at mealtimes cause. The indoor pool is heated to a nice warm temperature. We didn't have brilliant weather but one outside pool is heated so we did use that a bit but the indoor pool was often quiet, we often had it to ourselves and our toddler loved doing lots of swimming. Negatives We didn't book a pool or garden view which meant our suite overlooks the main hotel entrance. This means you get some traffic noise (truck deliverys to the hotel or cars of staff/guests) if you sit on the balcony or with the doors open. The trucks stopped around early evening. This was fine for us as we spent most of our time out and the noise wasn't noticeable with the doors shut. If you want to spend lots of time sunbathing and snoozing on your balcony choose a pool view. The play area climbing frame and slide is massive, I'm not sure i'd let an older child loose on it nevermind a toddler. The other children we saw (being away during term time) were all under 4 years old so the addition of a couple of swings and a smaller slide/play area would be a big benefit. The food was generally allergy labelled (a few items weren't). My daughter has a allergy to dairy. One time when serving up some veg for her I noticed it was quite creamy and questioned if it had milk in (the sign did not show it did). After a few minutes the staff confirmed it did but didn't seem to acknowledge the seriousness of this or relabel the food as containing milk. The hotel could perhaps do some additional training for restaurant staff to ensure the dangers of allergies are fully understood. If you do go B&B you should know that the food is fairly pricey (buffet ???39 each or burgers/pizzas ???18 ish) but it's good quality and as expected for a 5* The restaurants are all shut at 5pm and the earliest to open for dinner is 6.30pm. We found this too late for our toddler who tends to eat at 5pm and have milk and go to bed at 7pm ish. The hotel could consider a dinner sitting just for families at say 5.30pm-6.30pm but overall we tended to give her a big meal in the Lima bar at lunch and then give her sandwiches in the room for dinner. We then took a sleeping baby in her buggy out to dinner and this worked fine. Big thank you to all the staff at the Epic Sana we very much enjoyed out stay and would recommend.