Pine Cliffs Residence, a Luxury Collection Resort, Algarve

This review is based on my stay from June 2025 in a 3-bedroom residence as a family that included 3 couples. The Good - Beautiful setting - Ground meticulously maintained - Dramatic beach area Needs Significant Improvement - Maintenance - Housekeeping - Customer service & follow-up We arrived after a long trip from the US and a long drive from Lisbon to check into our villa only to realize that the villa that I booked almost a year in advance using almost 500,000 Bonvoy points also included a €1000 “upgrade fee” when I inquired about what the upgrade was nobody at the front desk could tell me because I already reserved the largest most expensive villa, but they assured me that they would check on it. Upon entering my villa, I noticed that there was a terrible smell in it, the air conditioning wasn’t cooling (which was probably causing the musty damp smell), and the Wi-Fi would not upgrade to the premium high-speed Wi-Fi that my Bonvoy gold standing provided. I immediately notified the front desk about these issues and was assured that they would be addressed. I continued to notify the front desk of these issues twice daily during my stay and they were never corrected, the temperature of my villa never went below 26 C (79 F) The multiple people that were sent to fix the air conditioning told me that it should cool down to 20 C (68 F), but they did not have the expertise to fix it and HVAC experts need to be called – that never happened. Because the air conditioning never worked, the smell never went away, even though they sent someone from housekeeping to mop the floor (not sure what that was supposed to accomplish). Additionally (except for the first night) nightly turndown service of the villa was never performed, despite me bringing the issue to their attention. All in all, this experience is not commensurate with a Bonvoy Luxury Collection Property and when I brought that to the management’s attention they agreed but did nothing to improve my experience. In summary, I communicated the above issues daily to the property, I wrote Bonvoy a letter expressing my dissatisfaction (during my stay) then followed up with the property’s contact point provided by Bonvoy, 3 times (during my stay, 1 week after check out & 2 weeks after checkout) and the responses I received were essentially: - Sorry you had these problems - Thank you for bringing it to our attention so that we can use it as a training opportunity for our staff - We agree that this level of service is not consistent with Bonvoy’s Luxury Collection properties (their highest level) - Be assured that they are looking into why I was charged an additional €1000 for an upgrade that doesn’t exist – note it is now more than a month after checkout and I’ve never gotten an answer to this - I was offered a “special confidential rate” (never quantified) to return to the property for them to provide me the experience I should’ve gotten the first time I understand that issues happen all the time, but it is how they are addressed that define the quality of the property. I am very disappointed that my issues were never taken seriously or addressed despite promises to the contrary.

Amenities, there were a lot of options for things to do. Rooms were great and clean.

Food prices were high for value of food and restaurant staff generally seemed uninterested and not the most friendly

For context we stayed for 2 weeks as a family of 6 with 4 children aged in the range 8 to 17. We also spent 2 weeks here in 2023. The Good - Lovely setting - Gardens excellently maintained - Lots of nice pools - Beautiful beach under the cliffs - Onsite activities - golf, football, zip lines, tennis, mini golf - Friendly staff The NOT Good Rigid processes make simple things hard work for the guests as staff stick to the "process" rather than attend to guest needs. On-site restaurant reservations are complicated (and farcical) - some can be booked online but others need to be booked through the concierge; some require credit card details within unspecified time of booking or else your reservation is automatically cancelled (despite the email notice saying to provide card details 6 hours ahead of reservation time). So after booking a restaurant at the concierge desk you need to be attentive to emails to quickly re-confirm with a credit card or else your reservation is unceremoniously cancelled. This is not true of all the restaurants so there’s no consistency. All this is required even though the hotel already has your credit card details with a pre-authorised hold. On a number of occasions we received random cancellations and re-confirmation emails so we were never fully confident of the bookings. On a couple of confirmed reservations when we arrived at the restaurant they didn't have our reservation but thankfully there was no problem organising a table for us. I understand they don't want no shows but the concierge admitted that over 99% of people show up so it seems a bit unnecessary to have this convoluted process - these are not reservations for a Michelin * restaurant in a city. I was told some of the restaurants are not owned by the resort so this is the process but interestingly, one of these, Yakuza, does not ask for credit card details whereas the resort restaurants do. The concierge is totally overwhelmed - never answers the phone or responds to emails - you have to show up at the desk. I was told they are busy as it is July but very simply there is not enough staff - apparently no cover when the concierge goes to lunch for example. Some facilities frustratingly close at lunchtime - e.g. mini golf from 1 to 2 - again suggests lack of staff. Another occasion trying to buy an ice cream (which was still open) we were told it was closed as it’s 5pm. The attendant waved his phone with the time on it at me which actually said 16:55 - when I pointed this out he agreed to serve me. Even if it was 5pm they had not closed up so should simply attend to the guests until there is a break in the queue. When buying an ice cream the process is to queue for your ice cream and then to join another queue to pay where guests are also queuing to order and pay for burgers - this means your ice cream is typically melted before you get to pay. We managed this by going in a pair and joining both queues. Pool attendants are stacking up loungers and umbrellas from 4pm even though the pools are open until 8pm - this gives the impression that you’re holding them up from something else they’d rather be doing and is encouraging you to move on rather than relax. A 10% tip is automatically added to everything - even coffee and ice cream. Technically this is optional but it makes the guest feel miserable if they ask for it to be removed. Mini golf surface is in dire need of repair - some minor repairs were done during our stay. Traffic (shuttles and carts) travel at too fast a velocity on the resort roads - there's lots of families walking around so I'm surprised there aren't frequent accidents. A couple of other one off incidents suggest a lack of attention. We had organised and had an email confirmation of an airport pickup but on arrival nobody was there. When I called the hotel they said they’d check it out and call me back. I never got a call so after 45 minutes we made our own way via taxi. On arrival apparently they had our transfer booked on the hotel system but failed to book it with the transport company. At least the hotel recognised this issue and paid for our taxi which was appreciated. I understand a mistake can be made but I was more annoyed wasting time at the airport waiting for the hotel to call back. I asked a pool attendant to help me move an umbrella for shade and he refused and watched as I moved the umbrella myself. On our last night in Mare restaurant we waited c. 90 minutes for our food. We were told at 21:35 that "the food is coming now" but there was still nothing for a further 40 minutes. We had lovely lunches there when the place was really busy. The restaurant was less than half full so cannot understand the delay. Our appetite was gone by the time the food arrived (22:15) - we still got the full bill with no discount or gesture for the disappointing evening. The accommodation (residences) is a little bit dated. It’s ok but the bathrooms really need some work - we had stand in bath showers with a shower curtain and a shower head that invariably fell down. It’s a while since I’ve stayed somewhere with shower curtains rather than a glass screen or similar. 2 years ago we stayed in the garden residences and these are much fresher. It is expensive and the food and drinks are overpriced - but I expect that and know in advance so I don't have a big issue with this. All in all the place is nice and we had a nice time. But you need to understand how the place operates so you don’t fall foul of unexpected circumstances - like showing up for mini golf at 1:15 or not jumping on to your email after the concierge has completed step 1 in the restaurant reservation process. It seems more organised around processes that the staff stick to rather than being able to flex and be attentive to the guests needs. The staff also aren't at all proactive about attending to guests - e.g. offering another drink, or asking is there anything we can do whilst you are hanging around. Definitely feels like more staff would help and if the staff that are there were trained to be more attentive to guests rather than process driven.

Great location. Great facilities but totally ruined by wedding parties and events. Sat 5th July impossible to escape the wedding speeches - incredibly loud and overwhelming. The wedding party took over main facilities and created huge noise and commotion almost impossible to avoid. . Very disappointing since this is an expensive resort.

Pine Cliff Residence We spent 6 nights in the Pine Cliff Residence in June. We had a 2 bedroom, garden access apartment close to the pool area. The website will give you full details of the pools, multiple restaurants and on on-site activities so I’m not going to repeat them here. We made good use of the amenities - padel, driving range, mini-golf, rented bikes and our son attended the on site soccer camp. Each pool had a towel hut and there were always loungers available when we visited the pool area, which was relaxed. The resort shuttle provided an excellent service for the longer trips. The beach access was one of the highlights of our stay. The onsite restaurants are of high quality but can be expensive for a family to eat in for the duration of the stay so we mixed local restaurants, cooking in the apartments with eating at the resort. The favourite restaurants we ate in were Peri-Peri Steakhouse (dinner) and Zest (healthy lunch). There is a small intermarche supermarket just outside the entrance to the resort and some more budget friendly restaurants and coffee shops within short walking distance. Overall, while the stay stretches the budget, was comfortable and enjoyable. We hope to return again.

The resort was amazing, well kept, clean, and golf was a blast!! Our kids really enjoyed a lot of the amenities the property had to offer, the rooms were very spacious!

This is no knock to the hotel, I have zero issues with the hotel... the airport immigration line was the worst I have ever seen... I have been to 94 countries and never seen such a horrible system to process passengers.

Great property, good food options. More than enough for everyone to do, the beach is great.