Tivoli Marina Vilamoura

Very impressive hotel that's where it ends, definitely not a 5 star hotel. The rooms are tired and dated. Can't book in on arrival as an event on even though 4 receptionists doing nothing. Then you are told room not ready go away and we will text you, but you are in your travelling clothes and we arrived from England so dressed for English weather. When we were given the door key for the room no one told us you must use the key to operate the lift (in fact we were given no information as where to eat or where anything was) we had to work this out for ourselves (we met one man in the lift one day and he said he had been in the lift 20 minutes the 1st day trying to get to his floor). The balcony in what was supposed to be a superior double room with sea view was no more that a shelf with just about room for two chairs and a small table. There was water in the bottom of our fridge, and I was sure they would notice this as they checked it every day in case you used it, and they could charge you for even the water so was sure they would notice but nothing was done about it. Fortunately we took our own tea bags and its a good job as there was only two tea bags and sugar in the room anyway, we don't drink coffee. When we booked this holiday we made our travel agent aware the main thing we wanted was a buffet menu in the evening as my husband is gluten intolerant and we mainly eat vegetarian so the travel agent rang and spoke to the hotel and the woman who's name I have, told him that they could cater for both and there was a buffet restaurant in fact he rang again on the 2nd of October and this woman assured him again the buffet restaurant would be open, but in fact they couldn't cater for us at all and knew nothing about my husband being gluten intolerant . When we worked out that the only place that was open to us was Peppers a steak house restaurant that didn't cater for vegetarians at all NOT ONE veggie meal on the menu at all and exactly the same menu every night of the week, that's two soups either pumpkin or mint pea soup. In my life I have never known a so called A LA Carte with such a poor menu. It was so pretentious you couldn't believe it, they charge six euros for a bottle of still water plus a 7.5% gratuity charge outrageous. We asked for the bill every evening so we didn't have any charges when we booked out and they asked us to sign every evening and guess what when we went to book out they asked us to pay 76 euro's we asked what's that for they said the drinks in Peppers but we paid every night, no you didn't they said you signed THEY ASKED US TO SIGN EVERY NIGHT. Fortunately, the last meal we had was so bad the manager Megel wavered the bill as he was so embarrassed with what we had been presented with but he asked us to sign the bill so they couldn't argue with that, but it took them 40 minutes of arguing to realise we were telling the truth. There is a lot more I could write about this hotel, the charges for a comfortable Lilo, only one lift working half the time, monotonous music played round the pool every day, chiller noises that keep you awake all night, etc, etc., but I would be here all day. This hotel would charge for the air you breathe if they could (shouldn't have wrote that it will give them ideas). If I can save even one person from the hoilday from hell that we endured my work has not been in vain.

I booked Champagne Afternoon tea & what a treat it was. First off our server Bruno was absolutely outstanding his attentiveness & friendly manner added to our day. The food particularly the sweet treats not only looked fantastic they also tasted amazing. I would highly recommend booking afternoon tea if you???re staying in Vilamoura. One thing was we were unable to book online so we had to ring to book & on the day there was lots of tables available. There was a convention on so maybe that was a reason no online bookings were able to be done. Would happily return if I???m back which I imagine I will be.

Could ask for better love it will go back soon food service was superb Can???t wait to go back staff well, wonderful couldn???t ask for better