Vila Gale Tavira

Ideally located a few minutes walk from the ferry to Tavira beach, the lovely river and its bridges, local food market, and a very wide range of bars and restaurants. The hotel is a little bland but the rooms are nicely decorated. This hotel was clean and good value for money. Not a lot of space to hang your clothes, bring your own hangers. The restaurant is not very inspiring, a little dark and dismal but the food is good quality. The large outdoor pool is excellent with lots of sunbeds.

This hotel is in a good location the price is very affordable and the staff are lovely.

The rooms are basic and there is very little storage space and I mean very little. Sockets are in difficult to reach places so bring an extension cord if you can. We had walk in shower which was a blessing as some photos show over the bath showers. Rugs either side of the bed that we rolled up and put to one side as they were trip hazards for us.

Breakfast was nice enough, good choice and nice and fresh. We didn’t eat any other food inside the hotel as so much choice outside and the restaurants are fab. It’s busy early as the hotel has a lot of golfing guests who are up at the crack of dawn to tee off.

Drinks in the bar are of a good standard and reasonably priced. Bar staff are so friendly.

Lots of sunbeds and no sunbed wars or people reserving them. However the pool area is rather slippy and a number of people took a tumble so be wary. In fairness to the hotel they try to keep the area dry but it’s impossible to do. Pigeons also enjoy the pool!

Our room cleaning was late every day, I know someone has to be last but I do feel it would be fair to rotate this so the same rooms aren’t always cleaned late in the day.

No kettle in hotel on arrival but ask at reception and they deliver one and cups.

Mosquitoes/biting insects are rife in Tavira so bring repellent.

Partner and I stayed for a week in late September. Tavira is a lovely old town with nice restaurants, beautiful scenery along the Gilao River, great beach close-by and a castle! Vila Gale seemed the ideal place to stay given it’s central location and facilities. The hotel appears to be one of only two in the town and the one closest to the centre, suggesting there's not a lot of competition to help drive up standards and I suspect a lot of people aren’t therefore demanding much from the hotel. Still, it is advertised as a 4 star hotel and I think a review is worthwhile for anybody weighing up the pros and cons of staying here.

Pros

• Excellent location – very central - just on the edge of the centre with easy access to the old town, the ferry to the beaches and shops and restaurants
• Very clean – place was spotless
• Great, large swimming pool – about 20 metres length

Cons

• Lighting – hotel rooms were very dark with no overhead lighting apart from just inside the door (where there were no sockets or mirror). Just a few very dim lamps making it very difficult to read in the room especially after 7 pm and to dry/style hair and put on makeup. Partner used torch on mobile to make sure she was getting out matching earrings! Outside lights were switched on centrally across the hotel at 8, until then it was pretty dark. Outside bar was crazily dark for a good hour or so meaning you had to go into the inside bar for better lighting. Dangerous as well because of different patio levels.

• Distinct lack of storage – not many drawers – including no drawers in bedside tables and not much space in wardrobes and lack of hangers

• Lack of convenient electricity sockets and/or appliance cables too short. No socket in bathroom, which there usually is in Portuguese hotels. Kettle was on hospitality tray on desk below TV but had to be put on floor to reach nearest socket. Only mirror in room was too far away from nearest socket to be able to look in mirror when using hairdryer

• Poor noise insulation

• Refrigerator in room was welcome but wasn’t especially cold

• Breakfast – cheap produce if you want a decent full English/Welsh – for example tiny, bad quality hot dog type sausages, watery baked beans and tinned mushrooms. Long queues as all eggs apart from scrambled were being made to order by only one person. Inexplicably, only small side plates were available and cutlery was dinky (like it was made for toddlers!). Guests were having to attempt a circus trick by balancing 2 side plates , dangerous as well as inconvenient! Raised with the staff but they just said it was hotel policy. Think they were probably fed up with people pointing it out. Never seen anything like it any other hotel. I was forced to go to an all-sorts Chinese shop up the road to acquire a bigger plate, like Alan Partridge! Nothing was said and I suspect the staff were wondering why the majority of people weren’t doing the same thing