This will be a true lightning review, simply designed to help someone heading to Porto, Portugal decide if this is a hotel that they want to consider, out of loyalty to Marriott Bonvoy, or pass on due to the location.
We made the decision to stay at this hotel for two reasons.
One was that I was able to get a relatively low rate on a one-bedroom suite (around 216 Euro a night) and, with a family of 3, space matters in a way it didn’t when it was just me or me and my wife.
The second was that online reviews inferred that it was “so close” to the action that the location wasn’t an issue.
I should note that I could have gotten a similar rate at the Hilton in the Old City part of Porto and while that suite was smaller, it would have been a better choice. I’ll explain.
The hotel is only a few years old and in that sense it’s pretty modern. The room was spacious, although we found it poorly designed in a few ways. It lacked light. The light switches were incredibly confusing (apparently each button on the panels of four controls three things and then the bottom right button turns them all off. My 3 year old loved to turn them all off pretty much all the time.
Here are photos of our suite, the largest in the hotel:
Note that while the website promised a club lounge, it wasn’t yet open as of this writing. Apparently not yet “certified.”
The bathroom was a bit maddening in that the shower had absolutely no place to put anything. Not even a soap dish for the bars of soap you have to ask for (zero are in the room on arrival). The shower has pumps for body wash, shampoo, and conditioner but, and call me old school, I like to shower with a bar of freaking soap! I wound up balancing it on top of the body wash pump.
The rooftop infinity pool and rooftop bar (with a free arrival drink for Bonvoy Platinum and higher) was beautiful and if you will be in town long enough to use the pool, it could be a selling point. It was nicely heated. When their second building opens, that will have a jacuzzi.
The included breakfast buffet was a total sh*t show the first day. There were lines to get in, brusk (ok, rude) service, and very average food. You can order an item from the below menu and the rest is on the buffet. I will say that the second and third mornings, the breakfast was totally fine (I mean, still mediocre food). And they did do a nice job with my son’s allergies on days 2 and 3 as well, so the first day indicated to me that they simply don’t have sufficient capacity at breakfast when the hotel is full.
The gentleman that checked us in was exceptional. Absolutely exceptional. I told him what we were looking for in restaurants and he made a list of about 10 spots that met our needs with notes on why. Clearly prepared just for us as he had time while we were out. Above and beyond.
So clearly, I’m not saying this was a bad hotel by any means. There were parts that were 5 stars and parts that were decidedly not.
As a Platinum member, besides the free breakfast and complimentary drink per person per stay, you also got free parking (valet included) which was a nice touch.
But let’s talk location. In the end, we did regret booking the hotel because of the location. As we took Uber after Uber past the incredibly centrally located InterContinental hotel, we knew we’d made a mistake.
There is nothing at all right by the hotel to walk to. There’s a metro station 2 mins away, but you’d need to connect to get downtown. So realistically you’d need to walk about 6 minutes to the nearest one (which did not work well for us with a stroller and only stairs to get down) to go directly. Or you could Uber. An Uber ride took about 10 minutes to most of downtown and was only around 5 Euros…. So totally “acceptable,” yet we had only two full days in town and by the time you call an Uber, it comes, and you get where you are going (plus taking everything out of the stroller, folding it, and securing our son properly in the Uber), it’s 20 minutes. Each way. If you want to go back to the hotel before dinner, you are at 40 minutes of travel.
In the end, being right downtown and walking out the hotel door (i.e. at the InterContinental) would have been much easier, and if booking in a similar situation (just a few nights to explore a new city), I would go for one in the center every time.
Incidentally, our previous stop in Portugal was in Lisbon and we chose the Hyatt Regency in the Belem section and the thought process when booking was identical in that I was able to confirm a large suite (with a washer/dryer!) and it seemed easy enough to Uber downtown. Except the day we arrived there was a large sporting event on with all roads closed making it more than 30 minutes to the center of town. Even normally it was 15 minutes. And so, while the hotel was nice (and I had been hoping the Andaz Lisbon would have opened by summer as planed), we also felt that was a mistake.
I’m sure that for some that move at a very relaxed pace and don’t mind the “commute” to the main touristic areas, this might all sound off base, but that was our experience.
Even if we had much smaller rooms in both Lisbon and Porto, my wife and I agreed that it would have been the better path.
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