Costa D’Oiro Ambiance Village

We absolutely loved this hotel. Right from checkin the staff were super helpful. The woman working took us on a quick tour to show us where the amenities are located. It is not a classic hotel, but a collection of small buildings on a quiet street. She also offered us a beach umbrella to use for the week which was a lifesaver in the August heat. They also have beach/pool towels in the room. Parking was included and located in a large lot right beside the main building. We booked a standard room and had emailed months earlier requesting a king bed, which we received. The room was a good size and was quite clean. The private balcony was also a good size and included 2 chairs, a small table and a drying rack for clothes. The drying rack was really appreciated as we had bathing suits to dry everyday. I should point out that we were on the second floor. The first floor balconies were less private and some were just an extension of the pool deck. This might be preferred for some people but we were happy with the privacy. The fridge in the room was very small and was filled with for purchase items. We would have preferred an empty fridge as we wanted to store our beach lunches. We took things out to make room but there wasn’t a lot of space in the room for storing the items. There was air conditioning in the room which I’ve heard isn’t common in Portugal. The pools were lovely. We liked having the option of the main pool and the quieter pools close by. The drinks at the pool bar were significantly more expensive than anywhere else we went in Lagos and they weren’t very good. I would recommend getting drinks from the convenience store around the corner and avoiding the bar unless you really want a cocktail. Breakfast was amazing and was included with our stay. The pastel de natas were so fresh and tasty. There were lots of options. I’m sure anyone would find something they liked. We ate at Do Village once. It was good but not great and more expensive than other options nearby. The server who I believe was the manager was very pushy with the wines. I really just wanted a glass but he brought over the bottle menu and held it open to this page so I couldn’t see the other pages. I asked about a glass and he said something like “we don’t offer these wines by the glass.” I could have been more assertive but we were tired from travelling and a bit thrown off by the interaction. We appreciated the convenience of eating at the hotel on our first night but probably wouldn’t eat there again. The hotel was a bit of a walk from the city center but we knew this going in. We walked home every night around 10:30pm and felt completely safe. We thought the walk was worth it for the quiet location, parking, proximity to the beautiful beaches and the ease of getting to the hotel. Ubers were very unreliable so if you are staying at this hotel, prepare to walk or look in to public transit.

Excellent service

Fantastic place, the staff were very friendly and helpful. The property was immaculately kept and quiet.

Very clean! Great location - within a 5 min walk to the beach, 15 to good hiking, 15 to the town center. Great if you want a quieter option.

Everything was fantastic. We came here for our honeymoon

We were three adults staying in a one-bedroom apartment in the main building. The apartment had one bedroom and a combined living room/kitchenette. It was about a 10-minute walk to Praia Dona Ana and a bit further to Ponta da Piedade. The walk to Lagos Old Town took around 20 minutes. Positives: The beds were very comfortable, even the extra bed. The apartment was cleaned daily, and the housekeeping was outstanding – everything was spotless when we came back from our day trips! There was an open wardrobe in the bedroom, although no extra hooks anywhere else for hanging clothes. Tip for the hotel: Add some hooks to the walls – there’s plenty of space for them. All the staff were super friendly and service-minded. The hotel restaurant served a lovely breakfast every morning, and we also had dinner there a couple of times – great food and friendly service. Delicious drinks were served at the bar. Negatives: There was only a small balcony, suitable for two people at most. We asked for an extra chair, but the reception suggested we use one from the indoor dining table, which made it quite cramped. There were no extra hooks in the apartment to hang towels or swimwear, apart from those in the bathroom. You had to use the fold-out drying rack on the balcony wall, which meant only one person could sit outside at a time. If the balcony is only equipped for two, despite the apartment being for three, this should be clearly mentioned in the hotel description.

Quiet, clean, and relaxing.

We had a wonderful stay at Costa D’oiro. From the staff to the grounds to the room, it was a spectacular stay. The restaurant at the hotel is lovely, both for the daily breakfast and we ate there for a dinner, wow. The room was ready early, we noted wanting separate beds and when we got into the room, they were made together, but it was resolved immediately. We also used the laundry service and had our clothes returned by the next day. The beds were extremely comfortable; the air conditioner worked well, the sheets were nice.

We checked into this seemingly delightful hotel with beautiful grounds and our room looked fantastic. When we first got to our room around 4 p.m. I noticed that when we turned on the air-conditioning in the living room and the second unit in the bedroom, neither a/c unit had air coming out that felt cool. Yeah that's good can you lay down thereI foolishly left the unit on in hopes that it would start cooling adequately. When we got back from dinner around 9:00 p.m. the room was still just as hot as it was when we first checked in. At that point I went to the front desk and asked Miguel if he could look at our room. When he came into the room he raised his hand to check the temperature coming out of the unit and pronounced it as just fine. I told him that I didn’t feel like the air conditioning was working properly. He then said that it takes over four hours for the units start producing cool air. He gave up on that notion when I told him it had already been on for almost five at the lowest temperature and highest fan speed. He did listen to that, and the very next thing he did was remove the batteries from one of the remotes and then place the very same batteries back again. He turned the unit back on and at this point, just as improbability as before, said it was working just fine. I could tell that there was no way this was going to get fixed so I asked Miguel if we could change rooms. He clearly wasn't happy about my request, but we went back to the office and Miguel got a key for room 51. The good news is the air conditioning in this new room worked perfectly. We spent the next half hour packing up all our things and moving, from our original room to this new room, finishing around 10:00 and being pretty shot from a busy and hot travel day. The bad news is that room 51 was dramatically smaller than our original room (#500) and we went from a very pleasant set of rooms to a small and depressing space where everything felt cramped and uncomfortable. Room 51 actually has no living room and simply has a sleeper sofa, a hightop table and a couple of chairs. One can barely make their way between the table and the sofa bed to get to the bathroom and the bedroom. There were two rather hazardous steps up to the “kitchen” from the narrow walkway between those steps and the sofa bed. We went from a full kitchen in room 500 to a room with a hot plate, sink and a dorm size refrigerator with none of the amenities of the real kitchen in room 500. Every room in our current space was much smaller including the “living room,” kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Additionally, instead of one queen bed there were two twins. Last but not least, the amount of storage space was dramatically less, which if one is traveling for a long time and has lots of stuff, make the space seem even more cramped if that were possible. Unfortunately for us our first night just got better as when I took a shower, the drain was clogged and the bathroom completely flooded. We used every single towel in the place to make it such that we could use the rest of the bathroom without walking through a puddle of water. To add insult to injury, the water in our shower never got hot and would cycle between warm and cold approximately every ten seconds. I tried calling reception to make sure that this got addressed in the morning and despite calling three times received no answer. After sending a message via Booking.com I heard back from Miguel and he said it would be handled first thing in the morning. I also asked him if I could speak to the general manager the next day and he indicated she would be there. When I walked in the office the following day and introduced myself to Sarah, she was not remotely friendly and made no effort at all to apologize for the inconvenience we’d incurred. I expressed to her that I didn’t feel like the rooms were remotely similar in size, amenities and general comfort, much less aesthetics. The only communication she engaged in was insisting to me that the rooms were the same class and the same cost. As you can tell from the pictures that is a bit of a stretch. This is a little like insisting that a new BMW is in the same class as a tired old Renault and that they should cost exactly the same. Reluctantly, she said she would extend us a $70 adjustment (on a $717 bill), because of the bathroom drain not working and the bathroom floor flooding. She extended this discount in nothing less than a begrudging fashion and treated me a surprising level of coolness. During the course of our stay I sent three messages to Sarah in my attempt to get the hot water situation resolved and she completely ignored my messages and we didn’t have hot water for the three days of our stay. Sarah also sent me a message saying that she would let me know if they were able to get the air conditioning fixed in room 500 so we could move back there. I never heard from her about this. On the following day. I stopped by the office to try and get something we left behind during our move from room 500 to room 51. Sarah barely acknowledged me despite me greeting her by name and in a friendly courteous manner. In essence, she did a good job of giving me the cold shoulder once again. At this point I’d been traveling in Portugal for two weeks and had experienced nothing, but a wonderful level of friendliness, hospitality and grace everywhere we stayed. Not a hint of that did I experience in my interactions with Sarah. Clearly, I never would have picked a hotel that had a room like the one we ended up in and one that isn’t accurately reflected in the marketing materials. It was bad enough that our room made for a very unpleasant experience, but the way we were treated by Sarah really capped things off. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the morning of our checkout I got our bill and there was no mention of the $70 discount. It was early in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do was have another interaction with the management of this property.

We stayed here 3 nights in Lagos. We walked to the city center everyday and went to the Praia Dona Ana and spent the day there. You can rent 3 chairs and an umbrella for the day for 20 euros. There is a nice little restaurant/bar where you can get take away or dine in. Very beautiful area in the Algarve, Portigal.