"I visited Hotel Faro in 2017 prior to the refurbishment so was interested to see how much had changed.
First & lasting impression is how dark & masculine. Everywhere is so dark. Despite the rooms have a huge variety of lighting they are still dark, corridors are dark, reception is dark, stair cases are dark, dinning room is dark.
Obviously a big effort has been made to upgrade the experience so that it reflects the cost. So this has resulted in some very nice touches. In the rooms are Nespresso machines and kettles. So no having to collect a kettle from the reception, no deposit for the safe etc. Wine & local chocolates in the room on arrival. Nightly visit to offer fresh towels & deliver chocolate. Pool towels in the room in a jute bag with flip flops, some sun lotion & after sun. Slippers and robes also in the room. Breakfast tea, some fruit tea & cream for the coffee available.
There’s plenty of body lotion and the shower gel/shampoo/ conditioner are restocked. Great if airline bag weight is an issue. The 2 bottles of “complementary” water are restocked daily. So some very nice touches.
Downsides.... please read my separate review if you have limited mobility as there were lots of fails in this area.
I think many people have mentioned the sink in room. This is a real design fail. Classic design over functionality. You have a separate toilet and a very large wet room. So no bathroom as such. There’s a very small table which the hand towels are on, which as a shelf. Barely enough room for tooth brushes. So all your toiletries which would normally be out of sight in the bathroom clutter the bedroom. No storage whatsoever in the large area the sink is on. The positioning isn’t practical if someone has the wardrobe door open ( making tea for example) you can’t get past.
Yes a separate toilet is a vast improvement on the glass doors of the old bathrooms but there is no storage at all in there. So no thought given to hygiene products, toilet wipes, creams etc.
The large shower for 2 whilst quite nice it still has issues. You have a large over head shower head and a separate “ normal” shower head. Whilst the large overhead shower is nice, if like me you don’t want to wash your hair every time you go in the shower it isn’t ideal. This wouldn’t be a problem if you could use the normal shower but there’s no bracket for this shower so you can only use it as a hand held.
There’s only 1 bedside cabinets & one USB port. Easily enough room for 2 bedside cabinets with more thought given to layout. There’s no sofa anymore which I really missed. Sockets aren’t in the best/ practical locations.
The patios have a table & 2 chairs, whereas previously there were sunloungers - which I liked. There are drying rails outside.
Mostly the maids did a very good job of servicing & restocking the rooms but for some reason face clothes & teaspoons disappeared after the first night.
Moving on to the pool. Thankfully allocated sun beds is no more. However it is still a very tightly packed area. The sunloungers have had an upgrade and now have very thick padding. These are already stained with water & sweat, personally I think the thickness of the foam means they won’t fully dry out out so I would think they are a breeding ground for mould & bacteria, but maybe that’s just me. They are closely packed so you can be in the shade of someone else’s parasol. Good points are no music (that’s on the 5th floor in the “trendy” Blue Marlin), poolside service is good & attentive. The young man who comes around to help with your parasol is very diligent as they can be challenging.
I’m not sure if the air conditioning was working in the gym, possibly not helped by people insisting on leaving the door open. Limited selection one cross trainer, one rowing machine, 2 running machine. Some multi function weight machines, a good selection of kettlebell and free weights although the smallest dumbbell was 5kg (not counting the 1lb set which were obviously meant as a concession for the ladies). No mats in the gym these have to requested from reception, really not sure why it’s done like that.
Dining. This is really where the Faro lets itself down. Previously the serving area was very small so you would hope having had a complete reorganisation this would have been addressed. Sadly not. You have allocated times for breakfast & dinner because the serving area is too small to cope otherwise. The food is of good quality & kept well topped up. There are plenty of staff but the food choices are limited and repetitive.
For the last 3 nights the restaurant was closed for maintenance so breakfast was served from the beach restaurant and for dinner you could eat al a carte at the beach restaurant or the Blue Marlin. Both have the same menu. We ate once at the beach restaurant in the evening and although the waiter was very proud of the restaurant proclaiming it to be the best on the island we did not concur. Breakfast was okay at the beach restaurant, a little cramped and extremely dark. All hot food was limited to the cooked to order menu.
Having eaten out for the second night we realised the Lopesan Costa was only across the square and we could eat there. What a revaluation, something like 13 different stations, Asian, fish, Mexican .... yes it is a much bigger operation but the food was faultless. Really don’t understand why having gone to all the trouble of a refurb they didn’t at least incorporate a little more space to increase the food offerings.
We did try the “cocktail” bar. The menu did say they could potentially offer classic cocktails in addition to the menu. Sadly this didn’t extend to a ‘Singapore Sling’ or ‘Sex on the beach’ (an island staple).
So if you’ve already booked bring a miners helmet for additional light. If not then consider the Costa ( which is for families & a bit noisier but lots more facilities) or the RUI."
