Oxon Flyer

[QUOTE=ajamieson;10756092]Romantic stroll? Nah, as long as there's SPAR up the road selling Stella I'm happy
[QUOTE]

There's an Alisuper right oppisite the main gate, for all you beverage needs, at supermarket prices. ^

ALIAS AKA

We are considering a 10 day stay at the Sheraton Algavre this June with a one-year old baby.

Any views of the suitability of that hotel for hols with small children?

Also, anyone has any idea of food & beverage prices (i.e. breakfast, avarage cost of a la carte evening meal / head) and cheaper alternatives in the vicinity?

many thanks

Alias AKA

Oxon Flyer

The Sheraton Algarve is very child-friendly, and from personal experience, a lovely hotel to take a youngster. It does all the necessary stuff : cots or small beds in the parents room, high chairs, child meals, and there's the Porto Pirata Children's Village.

There's plenty of space to spread out in the gardens, one area of which has a nice canopy of pine trees to provide some shade. There's a great golden sandy beach, which you reach via an elevator and stepped boardwalk.

Breakfast (huge and very good) is normally included in the room rate for the hotel (though not the townhouses or apartments that are also on the site). Dinner is at 'international hotel' prices : from memory the nightly buffet dinner in the main reaturant was about Eur45 per head last year. A la carte is more.
There are, however, a cluster of local restaurants and tavernas around the gate (10 mins evening stroll from the hotel) which are good, and much cheaper.

ALIAS AKA

Oxon Flyer

Reallly helpful. Do you remember how much does the hotel charge for breakfast? We'll be staying on points and I don;t think breakfast is included in reward night rates. Many thanks

Oxon Flyer

I have stayed here several times on points, and breakfast is always included. ^

luxe

Today Starwood changed the category of this very nice hotel from 5 to 4. For more hotel links and photos see my post here.

luxe

A great bid offer from Luxury Link site for Sheraton Algarve

BalluBallu

I'm planing to go there, it is a Sheraton, so I think this should have a lounge, but I can't find information regarding this topic and thanks for the link to the auction .. I'm tempted ..

luxe

I have not stayed at this hotel yet but I found their email for you [email protected] Please note that they have Pine Cliffs Residences as well as the hotel at the same location with the same address, telephone and email. You can compare these two by clicking here:

Sheraton Albufeira

Oxon Flyer

I've been : the Sheraton Algarve does not have a club lounge.

bmir

I´m writing this from the business center of the property. My wife and I arrived for a 2 night C+P stay last night. At checkin we were offered an upsell for 20 euros, but we declined.

This morning we woke up to find our bathtub with over a hundred termite-looking bugs. My wife called the front desk. They sent over someone from housekeeping who nonchalantly sprayed a strong disinfectant, removed the dead insects, and left.

We went out for a cup of coffee, came back to the room, and by now the whole room smelled of the spray, so we decided to move. We called the SPG desk here since we are Gold members, who said they would send someone to our room to facilitate the move.

We were then moved to a second room, which the moment we walked in, smelled of smoke. The bellman (friendly guy) then called the front desk and spent a long time talking, and then told us we had the option to take a neighboring room, but that was two twins instead of one queen. The resort is empty mind you, but he said that we had to find a room in our room class. We declined, saying we wanted a queen room.

Back on the phone with the front desk, and he got us a room two doors down from the original, same class. This (room number 4) was ALSO crawling with bugs. We called the bellman back in, and after seeing the bugs, he loaded us up, was on the phone with the front desk, and after a short while had us moved to room number 5, a nicer room on a higher floor that is, most importantly, bug and smoke free.

I understand bugs happen from time to time, and they said this was likely the result of a very wet winter here. Fine. But throughout the whole response, it seems like they were more concerned with keeping us in the same category room even though we had just been in a room on their property that was infested with bugs. This even though the hotel is wide open.

We never asked for an upgrade, because we frankly don´t need it, but it seems that because we were a C and P reservation, they were much more concerned about keeping us in our same class of room rather than resolving the situation, even though the "situation" was MASS INFESTATION.

I've never been to another hotel where they would respond to a report of mass infestation in the room with "The other available room in your class has two twins, but if you wait a few minutes, we can have housekeeping push them together to make a really big bed."

Even more disturbing is that we have not once heard anything from the manager, leading us to believe that the infestation is a common and widespread problem at this property, something so ordinary that it doesn´t even merit a call from the manager, nevermind any compensation.

The bellman finally got us in a bug free room on the 5th try, but an off-putting experience to say the least.

UPDATE: No one from the hotel contacted us during our stay. I asked to speak to the manager upon leaving because it just seemed that management was not aware of the extent of the bug problem. She was a friendly lady, and after hearing my comments, said that she was indeed not aware of the extent of the problem, as neither housekeeping nor the duty manager relayed the extent of the problem. She was apologetic and said she would look into it and have it fixed.

It's a beautiful property, had we not had the above issues it would have been a great place to stay.

GodOSpoons

This wasn't covered in the thread, so I thought I'd make this addition.

I looked around online and found a variety of rates, but settled on faroairporttransfersto.com for €32 for two. It was a private van and had a driver meet me at Faro airport for my TAP flight. Feel free to use them or not, but this is a decent off-season (early December) baseline for the 45-ish km transfer.

Timothy

BalluBallu

Update:
My reservation confirmation shows breakfast is included


Secured one last trip on cat 4

robertadams12345

any recent experiences of this hotel?
im in late 20s and was looking at somewhere convenient from belfast for a long weekend for my 1st wedding anniversary.
was going to just use spg points - 12,000 per night for aug 31st - sept 3rd

Oxon Flyer

Very nice time to go for an anniversary trip : families will be back at school, but the weather will still be super and evenings warm : their outdoor restaurants are open normally through till the end of September.

Can't you manage 5 nights there, then you would get the 5th free if you stay on points ?