Vila Gale Mares - All Inclusive

The hotel is actually nice. Most of our disappointing are related to services (or lack of). It wouldn't be for the Premium area, the experience would be a complete disappointment. Being a all-inclusive system there's plenty of food and drink, but quality is dubious. I've booked a short 3-day stay at the premium family apartment, which was supposed to provide some perks, starting with check-in in a private comfy room, which didn't happen, we had to line-up in the lobby with everyone else. The dear staff fictionally named Enrick for the purpose of this review said the hotel was understaffed. That was the beginning of our "premium experience". That statement of "understaffed" would make a lot of sense during our stay. The hotel features 5 or more theme restaurants of different cuisines that must be pre-booked. Only if you COULD pre-book. Every time I tried the system was out, or it was already fully booked until after my stay was over. Funny thing is that passing in front of same restaurants and they were half or one third empty. At certain point the staff suggested me to go directly to the restaurants and see if they had any openings. I've been to all of them, with no success. On our last day before dinner I went to the private room for premium room customer and asked support for booking ANY of those restaurants. I was told of possible a voucher would be sent to the room. Indeed we good a voucher for 7pm in one of the restaurant, but we only noticed the voucher at 8pm. We were at the room since 5pm, nobody knocked the door and so we missed the reservation. Pro-tip: already book the theme restaurants at the moment you book your rooms. Not having access to the theme restaurants we at at the communal restaurant. A big buffet with different cuisine served on different week-days. Food was mostly cold or looked "sad", things like sushi I was even afraid to try. The only decent options were the grill that was done fresh. Even the pizza tastes off (how can people mess up pizza?). It was difficult to get a table and staff had hard time setting tables as people finish their meals. My daughter queued for quite a while for being able to get ice cream. On the second day she got ice cream BEFORE the meal and let is melting there until she finished eating her mean and get dessert only for not facing the queue again. Being a Portuguese hotel chain I was expecting better wine options. On the second day my wife had food poisoning. After that we figure we could book the premium restaurant directly there during breakfast. So we did, it was the one meal we're were able to enjoy. Other than food, it was difficult to get towels at the swimming pools. The basket was already empty and it was already pending for some more to be delivered. That was also the case at the premium area swimming pool. Pro tip: get towels at 8am on your first day and keep them. Them to dry at your rooms and keep using them. Or bring it from home. Room towels aren't allowed at the pools. We book luggage pick up at our room before check out with 1 hour in advance, as requested by the hotel. It took 30min longer for the pick-up to come. Not related to the hotel itself, but the beach just in front of the hotel wasn't as nice as we expected. There were strong waves and the water was very cold. Even though it's winter, we expect warmer and calmer waters. The hotel itself is super nice, it's spacious, lots of green, nature, even with some iguanas and monkeys roaming the resort. I have no complaints about the room either. Beds where comfortable, shower with good pressure and water temperature, good air-conditioning, a balcony with hammock.