Tivoli Marina Vilamoura

My sister in law and myself stayed in July and had the most amazing time. It is all you would expect from a 5 star hotel. I’ve read negative reviews regarding juice and coffee at breakfast, not sure why the complaint the minute we sat we were served. The service throughout the hotel was exceptional especially the pool bar service. We stayed half board and the food was delicious every night and always very hot. Our room was well cared for with the special service of turn back and our delicious chocolate left on the pillow. If I have to have a slight negative it is that it would benefit from a rail to hold when getting in and out of the pool.

I am presently staying at this hotel with my wife and son and after paying almost £6000 for a week we are seriously disappointed, we thought we’d found a hotel that we’d come back to year after year but alas not. Like so many other reviewers you can’t tell what clientele the hotel are trying to attract and cater for, couples, singles, families? Well all I can say is I think families come way down their priority list. Ridiculously loud music coming from the pool, plus different music coming from Purobeach, turn it off by the pool it’s not needed and is beyond irritating, the main pool is not a proper pool, no deep end and god forbid you get a small ball out to play catch with your son, the ‘pool police’ are on you in a second telling you to stop, ridiculous. And don’t get me started about the sun-bed wars, the hotel harps on in their info and on the hotel room television that sun-beds are not allowed to be reserved and every single morning by 7/8am over half the sun-beds had towels/books/flip flops placed on them. I don’t come on holiday to be stressed about not being able to get sun-beds in the shade and having to set an alarm to come down to bag sun-beds like the rest of the hotel is doing every morning. Don’t get to breakfast any later than 9am as it’s like a bun fight after that time, the buffet if not big enough for when the hotel is at full capacity and the staff around the hotel not overly friendly, just going through the motions. Buy snacks and drinks from the local supermarket and store in your mini fridge because you’ll be paying for example €21 for a gin and tonic. If you’re half board like we are you get to eat in Oregano at night for free, a very basic not terribly interesting buffet and if you want to eat in the steak restaurant Peppers, you’ll only get €25 off your bill, not €25 per person like we were led to believe so our first night Peppers meal still came to €180. I assume I will now get the generic reply from Hugo the general manager. Step it up Tivoli as your brand could be and should be a lot better.