Pure Monchique Hotel

Waste of money. I’m currently here now and after paying a fortune, they say we have to pay 15euros to access the spa. Okay fine, now we go to the spa and they say it’s 15 euros for 1.5 hours. They say it’s on the website but I searched everywhere çant see that. We also paid extra for a Luxury room and they only give coffee in the Suites which are 500 euros. Do not come here.

The hotel is in a beautiful location with several different types of rooms. It was supposed to be 4*. We stayed at the cheaper hotel although it was not cheap. The spa and treatment was good. The service was terrible as there was no tea and coffee in the rooms. They only provided water on the first day. There was no room service in a 4* hotel!! The reception I our hotel was part time and you had to contact the main reception a 5 minute walk away, this was disconcerting for me. The food at breakfast was less than adequate and they ran out of teabags on our 2nd day!! It's a remote location so we had dinner at their restaurant. The food was awful. There were 2 options fish and duck. The fish has become tough and was tasteless and the duck was tasteless. My husband and I had salads and bread. Definitely wouldn't recommend it

Overall this hotel is okay. We got an awesome deal at about $80 Canadian per night which included breakfast and a session at the thermal waters pool/sauna/steam room. The location is in a very quiet area, with a few restaurants within a 15 minute walk. The room was clean and the bed was comfortable. The main negative is the noise from within the hotel. The walls are thin and if you have neighbours you will hear them. There is no carpet in the hallways and the doors slam very loudly which gets annoying and can wake you. If you’re looking for nightlife and excitement, this isn’t your place. If you want a quiet getaway it’s ideal. It’s also close to several nice hiking trails.

The staff at this resort was extremely unfriendly and made us feel unwelcome. We arrived a bit early (around noon) and to their credit, they did allow us to check in early. We were told when we booked that we would receive a welcome drink and pastry which we did not receive (maybe because we checked in early), certainly not a deal breaker. I'll start with the positives: The area of Monchique is beautiful. Very peaceful and quiet, but also a bit remote so I would recommend renting a car. The room was very nice. It was spacious with a nice balcony and large bathroom. The view from the balcony was lovely. We tried to eat at the restaurant 3 different times and were turned away each time. The first time at noon (they said they opened at 1) . We went back at 2:45 and they said the kitchen was closing in 15 minutes and turned us away again. They told us to go to the bar across the street. We went to the bar and they said they didn't serve food (despite the menu on the bar saying they served food from noon till 9). They offered us stale pork belly buns which were terrible. We tried the restaurant again that night, they seated us and gave us menus, but then the manager came over and strongly recommended we eat up at the hotel because they were having a themed Portugal night. We didn't really want to, but we were made to feel so unwelcome at the restaurant that we left. I should mention that the options for food are very limited as the area is remote and there were only 2 or 3 places to choose from. In my opinion, it was the manager and staff that created an overall unwelcome feeling. I don't know if it was because they were coming into the "off season", but I would not recommend this hotel because of the staff. It's too bad because the location and the hotel itself, weren't bad. I should add the manager seemed to be running the hotel, the restaurant, and the bar.

The hotel was very comfortable and had the best sleep in a long time. We booked a suite. Great views. Would return here again! Free access to the thermal pool.

This hotel chain should not be permitted to operate. They portray the imagine of a perfectly lovely 4* Spa hotel in the mountains with a plethora of services, pools, restaurants on site, shops, pictures show lovely rooms and promise a variety of facilities. In reality however, the vast majority of these advertised services and facilities are quite plainly a LIE! Poorly maintained room, broken air conditioning units in 44 degree weather. Dangerous decked area with exposed screws all around the filthy, unfiltered, mossy, full of hair and broken tiles swimming pool. Most services unavailable or simply closed down. The various on site restaurants equate to 1 appalling restaurant which also serves the simplest and cheapest of breakfasts I have even seen in my 20 years of travelling, Raw in middle MINI croissants, hard little rolls, the cheapest cheese and ultra processed ham, concentrated juice from a box, economy style yogurt and QUEUES for this breakfast exceeded 20min. Guests complaining on the queue, appalled at the extremely poor organisation and service. Complaints made daily regarding the issues were simply ignored. We we promised 'the repair team' would come next morning to fix the broken air conditioning unit and yet 7 days and 7 complaints later, upon check out we still did not have this repaired. We went here to relax and enjoy ourselves after nearly 20 months of isolation and instead we had our first HOLIDAY FROM HELL as a result of this extremely poor hotel chain. We had many other broken things in our room as well, too many to mention. Stay somewhere else if you value your sanity.

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