Vila de Frades Trip

Excellent staff. Great location. Short walk to sandy beach. Only negative is that it was a little remote from town.

Loud noisy until 4 am loud music and karaoke at bottom of hotel - LOUD means very loud (night club and band playing in the street)

Restaurants were overpriced . Charging 6 dollars for a bottle of water.Charging to use the sauna.

regular visitors 2x year -good to see friendly faces all over property -bars restaurants pools etc we like because do not need car with choice of dining options on site plus beach venues via friendly shuttle service .we dined at Adega twice in our week and were a bit disappointed by food and slow service-night 1 tempura green beans were poor -batter very thick -but clams and chicken were good -night 2 roasted mushrooms were tepid on service ?symptom of service issues -we noticed young couple leaving before being served after long wait ! I had sucklng pig special -very disappointing -skin far from crispy but more seriously very carelessly butchered -in number of largish pieces but quite a number of small pieces of bone -not a problem for me but offputting and dangerous for some -choking?Biggest issue is very slow service -its busy but seems to have decent number of staff but some seem to have very restricted tasks so less value than normal staff might be .we have mentioned before but doesn't seem to improve -maybe need more hands on overseer ! Arte Natica is delight -friendly longstanding staff -maitre d'a real pleasure -good wine pricing -Alloo vinho verde 27e bottle against cheapest entry level in other places of vila vita special 35e-excellent couvert -tuna pate pickled carrots good oil and bread -oysters very good and stuffed crab shell terrific while good chicken . Praia Dourada -Alloo wine on list @27e john dory goujons and red beef curry and great rice -

The property was brand new when I visited - with trendy interiors, lovely rooms and near the sea. However, it felt like the hotel was running itself, I've never seen anything like that. The breakfast was packed withstaff wondering around not knowing what they were doing, we would schedule a fitness class and the instructors wouldn't show up, no one had a clue if yoga should be booked or not...it's just a never ending list. We were even lied that the instructor was ill (after no one bothered informing us that the class is not happening) and although we were promised they would schedule a class for the next day and call us, that never happened. The conciarge was lovely and tried helping but she can't run the whole hotel in addition to her regular job. Pools were lively but the number of sunbeds and sun umbrellas were way too low for the number of guests (all the sunbeds would be taken before 10am), I even saw people getting into a physical flight about them - staff didn't react even then, although I asked them to intervene. All in all, a lovely property but completely mismanaged which would probably prevent me from coming back as I don't need all this stress on holiday.