City Center Chill Apartment by LovelyStay

Pequeño y bonito apartamento. Muy cómodo y tenía parking +1 por ello. Las ventanas dan a un patio con jardín, muy tranquilo.

No tiene A/A, con la humedad y el calor de Oporto en verano hace que tengas que dormir con las ventanas abiertas.

El acceso desde el aparcamiento.

Las escaleras de acceso a la calle. El baño tiene manchas de moho.

The apartment is perfectly located — a 15-minute walk from the city center or just 3–5 minutes to the metro station. It’s on a fairly busy street, but faces the inner courtyard, so it’s quiet. However, its biggest advantage is the private parking space included in the price!!!

The key collection procedure had changed since I booked the apartment. Initially, it was supposed to be contactless, using a code received in advance. Instead, the owner required me to provide an exact (!) arrival time because someone was supposed to meet me with the keys. Not in a time range, as usually specified on Booking.com, but at exact time — since the person had to come especially for this. This is rather tricky when you’re traveling by car from another part in Portugal, as it’s hard to predict things like traffic when entering Porto. As a result, we hurried to be on time — and, of course, the person delivering the keys was late anyway 🙂 And there is no excuse, that the owner has many flats to manage... The owner also doesn’t provide advance instructions on how to access the internal parking. So until the person with the keys arrives, you have to manage on your own — fortunately, there are plenty of street parking spots nearby. They are paid, but you can spare 1 EUR. Overall, what was supposed to be a simple key collection process turned out to be rather complicated. As for the apartment itself — it’s important to know there is no air conditioning! There is a fan, but that’s not really enough. The interior is quite simple, if not to say: “vintage” The bed in the bedroom squeaks terribly and is uncomfortable. On the other hand - the sofa in the living room is basically for sitting — when unfolded, it can safely sleep one person, but if a second person lies down, it tips over 🙂

El parking al lado del apartamento

No había aire acondicionado pero tienen un ventilador

Whole apartment. Easy self check-in and self check-out. Good location - walking distance to the city center, close to the metro station. Stable and good quality WiFi. Comfortable beds.

Only one duvet on the double-bed

The location is great - very close to the centre, we never had to use public transport, you can walk to the main attractions in 10-20 minutes. Parking is great too - easy and secure. When you drive there, the place is easily accesible from the motorway, so you don't have to drive into any narrow or steep streets, yet it is close enogh to the centre. The flat has a dishwasher and and a washing machine. Overall it was a good place to stay for 2 nights.

They have their own website for administering your stay (and probably also for other properties) - I bet it is easier for them, but not necesarily for you, as you need to remember to visit this site to get the codes (rather than just get them via a message in booking.com) - only slightly annoying. The flat looks better in the pictures than in reality - the furiniture and equipent is a tired, the bathroom could really use a deep clean (mold in the shower), and probably the whole flat really. The equpiment in the kitchen is bad, for instance only two mugs, one of which was glued together (why not spend a few € on a couple of new mugs, they are cheap), no cutting board, three coffe capsules for three people for two nights.... The towels were super thin, the pilows not very comfortable - small things that could be fixed easily. The sofabed in the loving room is a bit unstable, when used as a bed.

The location, the secure parking, the bed was comfortable.

The absence of a remote to access the parking. The apartment felt tired. Mugs were cracked, plates were chipped, a drawer fell apart; more towels would have been nice; an old fashioned coffee pot or filter machine would be good (I hate pods) and I'd have liked a microwave. If the owner would spend a few euros the apartment would be worth a 9.

Great little flat - you got a washer+dryer, proper kitchen, dishwasher fridge and freezer, iron, toaster, kettle, nice shower, etc. Clean and well furnished.

Just one complaint that stops it from being a 9 - why be so stingy about some the basics in the room? For a 5 day stay, more than 1 pod for the dishwasher would be nice, and we barely managed to stretch the toilet paper. It wasn't exactly possible to buy this stuff over Christmas, but also, you can't exactly buy a small box of dishwasher pods and do we really need to drop an extra 15 euros on that? Same for laundry detergent/toilet paper. Also only 1 garbage bag. This is all adequate for a night or two, but less stinginess on these essentials would have been more appreciated by us than the box of cookies and wine they left for Christmas. Which was nice, but not practical.

I cannot rate this place highly enough. A comfortable one-bed apartment that was central, clean, comfortable and great value, especially for a lone traveller. Staff were highly responsive over email and check-in was smooth.

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