Belavista da Luz

The Belavista da Luz is a most relaxing, chilled hotel. Spacious rooms, very clean and comfortable. We were on half board and our evening meal was a set menu, 3 choices with three courses, the food was excellent and plentiful. All the staff at the hotel were professional and friendly, a special thank you to Elke on reception, for organising our request for a room change. Pool area was quiet, plenty of loungers, but not enough parasols.

A peaceful, yet not too quiet hotel that was perfect for our family of five. We had to book two rooms as they take maximum four persons. Initially we had rooms on different floors, but this was changed upon arrival so we got rooms side by side. Both with sea view. Breakfast was wonderful, just enough variety and all good quality food. Nice pools and recreation areas. Kids loved the small soccer field. Spa looked nice, but we did not use it. Would come back!

Positives and negatives: The Room The hotel room is a good size, pretty large, we stayed in a premium doublebed sea view, nice size balcony and one can see the sea in the distance to some extent. The bathroom and shower was clean and good with bidea aswell. The Cleaning staff do a good job each day to keep the rooms in good nick. Areas for improvement, please supply a tissue box in the sleep area and bathroom, there was none, only toilet tool available. An iron and ironing board in the room would be handy, although maybe the reception area might have had one but we didnt go to the trouble to ask. A second locker at the other side of the two beds to put things on at night-time would be handy, then the third bed was a more portable bed which was ok. the key based safe was a bit old fashioned with a manual lock and key rather than a digital display one but it did the trick. So overall for the room 7 out of 10, satisfactory.

Breakfast Area: The breakfast was one of the strong points of this hotel, there was a range of buffet style options there, everything you would want pastries, fruit drinks, breads, cold meats, cheeses, an english style fry up options, tea and coffee machines, cereals, nuts, pancakes, real fruits. The staff were friendly and kept the tables clean and available, Abhi in particular was a really friendly and helpful guy. there was an indoor and outdoor areas to eat.It did get busy between 9am-10am but one could always navigate the buffet area quite well, all in all very good experience 9 our of 10, if one could provide a fish offering one would get 10 out of ten, it didnt have that at present.

Outdoor Poll and Indoor: Outdoor pool was nice not too deep but in late August, it was far too cold, some used it including ourselves but one wasnt rushing to jump in, it was refreshing but not really enjoyable due to temperature. The pool side bar was ok, with a limited range of eat bites. Just about enough lounge desk chairs, I would say when a lot of guests are hotel there wouldnt be enough, I counted about 20-25 but with the pool water temp level, there was enough as Id say people went to the indoor pool instead; We didnt try the indoor pool etc as we didnt have swim caps packed, I'm sure that is a nice facility.

Reception Staff: The reception staff were always helpful but their greeting and demeanour was a bit bland; it would be nice if they were a bit more upbeat and cheerful when greeting guests, they were friendly but a bit low key; I ve had better inviting feeling from the recption staff at other hotels where they radiate happiness onto you and make you feel special, thats wasnt here, the staff were more functional - nothing wrong with that but probably need more so 6 out of 10, but anyting we asked for they did help on all occasions, dont want to sound too negative, it was just the vibe more than anything else and its not like one spends all day speaking to the reception staff so its just a point of view, didnt impact the holiday.

The hotel itself is about 1 km from the beach, but its good going fown to the beach but the hike up a mid steep hill on the way back can require some inspiring talk to keep pluging away to get to the hotel, so that was a bit of downside, I guess one could take a taxi for 3-5 eurosback up if one wanted to. There is a spar down near the bottom of the road about 700 meters away which is stocked well and reasonable prices. The restaurants are all about between 200-500 meters away so a 5-10 min walk so that was pretty ok in our opinion. The padel tennis, soccer pitch and table tennis are all good, no complaints there.

The hotel is listed a four stars, but I'd give it max stars, nothing particularly bad about it, it did the job.

So overall I would give this hotel 7 out of 10, would we return not really mainly as we only return to hotels/aprthotels that really delight us, but in saying that, this hotel was adequate and we wish the hotel continued success. Hope this review helps to further improve the hotel and wishing anyone going on hgolidays a lovely sunshine time!