"This hotel is stunning.
If you're going to stay by the pool all day you do not need a room with a balcony.
If you do have room with a balcony then you have an endlessly stunning sea view.
When you arrive at the hotel and you've checked in you should be given a tour of all hotel facilities - you must make sure that you receive this, so that you get to understand the hotel's full facilities on the offer.
Then you are welcomed with Bellini’s on the terrace.
On the lower ground level there is a gym with full access to its guests, the spa where you must book for any treatments that you may wish to have and an all year round heated spa pool - that guests currently have to pay for to use and can only have a maximum of 10 people in it at any one time, so you must also book.
This spa is a very clever design running underground underneath another part of the original palace with a wonderful flowing aqueduct as you walk down the stairs.
The staff are exceptionally friendly and accommodating.
Breakfast has an exceptional range that covers every possible need and want from traditional Portuguese cakes to Canadian pancakes and syrup, French toast, an entire buffet for an English cooked breakfast. Made to order eggs Benedict and traditional Portuguese quiches. Varied array of fresh fruits, yoghurts, granola, cereals.
A diverse range of different breads, cakes, danish’s and pastries. Fruit juices, tea’s, coffee’s, mimosas and champagne.
Breakfast can be indoors on the lower ground level or joining to this - outside around the pool terrace. You can help yourself to anything or have table service.
If you stay all-inclusive you will currently be very disappointed with the fact that the lunch/dinner menu doesn't change, this has been raised as being an issue with the hotel.
Their Italian restaurant is no longer open and will not be opening again and the hotel doesn't need it. This is now solely used for banqueting, weddings and business functions.
The hotels terrace that overlooks the pool from the ground floor, which is the raised terrace, which has stunning views of the ocean is more than competent enough to provide you with your lunch and evening meals however, it needs to have a much wider variety and separate menus for lunch and dinner.
Every day at 4:00 the resident Harris Hawk is flown in order to ensure that any local birds, which the hotel does not have a problem with, are kept at Bay. The young lady that is Tor's handler is extremely polite, courteous and accommodating - and will happily talk to any guest about the hawk and his care.
The hotel has resident Peacocks and even a couple of ducks, which just add to the charming ambience over the hotel.
The hotel has three pools in all: - spa pool on the lower ground floor, the main outdoor pool on the ground floor and a very small paddling pool for the younger guests.
The hotel has an endless supply of towels, an outdoor shower, sufficient number of sun loungers and even some Laurent Perrier deck chairs, in a small ‘champagne’ garden, all of which guests are free to use at any time.
Lunch and evening food varies from excellent to good. Again, this needs to be more diverse and change more regularly. The chefs are more than competent enough to achieve this.
The main terrace is an absolute joy, the perfect place sit and relax looking out to the ocean, definitely a place that once you sit you don't want to move.
There is a local park just a 2 minute walk up the road out of the hotel main entrance, with its own harbour and beach.
There are many restaurants within easy driving or strolling distance from the hotel - should you wish to venture out and the hotel is only 5 minutes’ walk from the centre of Cascais. Maré – a Michelin starred restaurant is absolutely stunning with very friendly staff, not pretentious at all and food was excellent. It is 3-8 minutes from the hotel.
Staff in general from all departments over the hotel were polite, friendly, had time for you.
Service time needs to be improved – especially at breakfast.
Overall you find a more beautiful hotel.
Separately – please be aware of the following regarding Lisbon airport.
We hired a car from budget, extremely low cost which was excellent, we ordered a mid-range automatic and received a brand new Citroen C4 £200 for the week.
The car hire section of the airport is ridiculously busy, has absolutely no organisation or routine and literally deals with all travellers on a first come first serve basis – and if you do not take a ticket from the machine as soon as you arrive, you can stand there for an hour without realising that you’re not even in the queue!!
Even if you have fully paid in advance for a car, regardless of how or with whom you did through - it has no bearing.
We waited 2 ½ hours to collect our car.
The only time you will not have to wait more than 30 minutes to pick up and can 'jump to the front of the queue', is if you use the Avis system on an app and booked through that using priority booking.
If you haven't done that, then you wait in line with everybody else and all of the car hire options – Europcar, Budget, Avis, etc that were available there - all work in exactly the same way. That being said the staff were friendly, the car was immaculate and returning the car was extremely easy.
However, you need to be very aware that Lisbon airport is extremely difficult – Not only do none of the new electronic passport control systems work, but as we are no longer part of the EU we have to queue up with the rest of the world and therefore when you get off your plane not only do you walk through duty free and the arrivals hall, even though you're also simultaneously in the departures hall - you also have all the luggage carousels with all the people that are arriving and departing, so that's not very secure.
On top of that, you have to go through two passport controls in order to get out and it is the same on the way in so you do need a minimum of two hours just to get through passport control which is often difficult to achieve when your luggage check in desks do not open more than 2 hours before and there are no bag drops either.
In Lisbon airport they also do not give you any notice between when the gate is open, when the gate is boarding and when the gate is closing - they simply go from this is your gate to final call - this has also been logged as a complaint with the airport by many different airlines, for the many people that have missed their flights as a result of their poor communication.
If you have mobility issues – you must have some form of documentation with you to prove it [yes I really did say that!] or the staff won’t let you through the priority boarding lane – even if you are registered with your flight as needing assistance, the staff that we experienced here regarding this matter were rude and do not care.
Please also remember that although the UK has now bought new machines to deal with bottles over 100ml the rest of Europe has not. And definitely not Portugal, so anything over 100ml or anything that you have purchased e.g. honey - when you are leaving Portugal/Lisbon – must be in your hold luggage.
The roads around Portugal are superb, their infrastructure is excellent people drive quickly and easily - they don't hog lanes, they stay out of everybody else's way and there was no examples of traffic jams or traffic queues when we were there - other than maybe 5 minutes in ‘rush hour’ and maybe also due to the fact that Portugal were playing in their World Cup match, so everyone was trying to get home or to bars.
We travelled the full width and breadth by car from our hotel.
The countryside is stunning.
The locals are very friendly.
Óbidos is definitely an unexpected shopping mecca!! A wonderful historical UNESCO site worth a visit.
Be aware that for any of the churches, castles, towers e.g. Sintra,
You cannot drive to them as they close the roads to stop tourists driving up. So you must visit by coach or tour, even taxis cannot take you."
