"My wife and I have just returned from 10 day’s stay at The Ancora park and we had a great holiday. I am a firm believer that these reviews should try and help people make decisions about their future trips and therefore I will give my honest opinion, both good and bad, below.
Hotel
The hotel is very well appointed, with the reception, bar and restaurant block being separate to the main hotel room block. Across the road are the self-catering ‘villas’.
The restaurant and bar are one facility and are used for everything food and drink wise.
The pool area is quite large with plenty of sun loungers, and whilst we there, they were readily available with no one ‘reserving’ them. There are three ‘cabana’ style beds at the top of the pool area. However, it has be said that the sun loungers aren’t the best. They are quite uncomfortable and have definitely seen better days. I think the hotel should consider replacing these or buying in some mattresses as they aren’t great to lie on for several hours a day!
The pool itself is massive! It’s Olympic sized and so there is plenty of room in there for all. There is also a smaller kids pool available.
WiFi is patchy, it’s pretty good in the rooms and the reception bar area, but it’s very patchy by the pool area and doesn’t always work very well.
Whilst we there, the hotel was fairly quiet which was nice, but it was starting to get busier as we were about to leave, so summer may be a different story.
Rooms
The room was lovely, with a large balcony overlooking the pool area. There was a small table and chairs on the balcony. The bed was quite comfortable, the room was large with a double bed/twin beds, a sofa that converts into another bed, a desk and small table with chairs. I would say that the rooms have recently been refurbished.
The Bathroom was large with a lovely walk in ‘rain’ shower and a big sink area. There is a hairdryer in the room, but it’s not the best, so you may want to consider bringing your own.
There is a medium sized TV on the wall with lots of channels including CNN and Sky News in English and a safe for valuables which is free to use.
My biggest gripe was the lack of storage space for clothes which meant we ended up using the sofa and other places to store our clothing! There is a hanging ‘wardrobe’ but there are no drawers or shelves.
A good point was the number of electrical outlets in the room, which were plentiful.
Our room was cleaned every day with towels changed every day as well.
Food and Drink
We had B&B whilst we were there which was OK, but Breakfast is quite limited. There were fried and scrambled eggs, cooked tomatoes, Hash Browns/Potatoes, Bacon and Sausages but the Bacon and Sausages aren’t like the ones you might be used to in the UK! They’re similar to what you used to see in Spain and Portugal years ago!
Different Cheeses and meats were available along with Fruit and Yoghurt, Cereals and Bread.
Coffee was OK from a machine, the fruit juice was also from a machine and not the best. There was also some sparkling wine available to make a bucks fizz style drink.
All of that said, we never struggled to find anything to eat.
There is a happy hour between 2-4pm with selected drinks at half price. Cocktails were pretty good and not badly priced. The beer on tap is Sagres which is about €4 for a large, there is also a non-alcoholic Sagres bottle which is OK.
There is a restaurant on site which looks really nice, but we didn’t eat in there this time.
Location
The hotel is situated about a 25 minute walk from the lively old town of Lagos where most of the shops and restaurants are and about a 45 minute walk from the Marina. Uber and Bolt are readily available and cheap. It takes less than 10 minutes in a taxi to the old town and less than 15 minutes to the Marina with the cost being between €3.50 - €6 depending on the time of the day etc…
There isn’t a great deal around the hotel itself. There is a small supermarket less than 10 minutes’ walk away and a much larger ‘Intermarche’ supermarket about 25 minutes’ walk away.
There are a few restaurants around 10 minutes’ walk away but the vast majority are in the vibrant old town.
We didn’t venture down, but the ‘Praia do Porto Mos’ beach appears to be about 15 minutes’ walk from the hotel. However, for a larger beach with a few beach bars, you’ll need to walk either 50 minutes or take a 15 minute taxi ride to the ‘Praia de Sao Roque’ beach. The hotel isn’t that close to any beach, so if that’s important to you, it would be something to consider.
The hotel is about an hour in a taxi from Faro airport with a cost of about €50-€60 each way. There is also a Flixbus that takes you to Lagos.
Overall
A really nice hotel overall, although it is a bit a way from the old town and Marina so you may want to consider this before booking. It’s also not particularly close to a beach so if you value that, this may not be the place for you. It’s probably not a place to book if you have kids either as there isn’t a great deal for them to do aside from a small pool and a small play park.
That said, on a personal note, I would absolutely stay here again. It suited our needs perfectly and we really liked it. All of the staff we encountered were excellent and we didn’t have any problems at all. I would definitely recommend this place as one to consider."
