"I cannot say it has been a totally negative experience. This hotel has many positive features: a perfect location just outside the historic city centre and the tourist chaos, in an area of luxury hotels and designer stores. The traffic can be noisy at times (more on that later), but there are no late-night clubs or tourist restaurants. The historic Baixa district is just a 5-minute walk from the hotel, and the metro stop is right outside.
Another positive feature was the free airport transfer. On arrival it worked perfectly: a kind driver was waiting for us at the arrivals gate. The problems started when we tried to change the transfer time for our departure. The day before we left, I contacted the reception staff, who categorically refused to move our transfer one hour later, saying we should have requested it earlier.
We did not book the transfer ourselves. The hotel staff did it, and we only sent them our flight details. Since it was our first time in Lisbon, we had no way of knowing how long it would take to get to the airport. Only after a couple of days did we find out that they had booked us to arrive at the airport almost 2.5 hours before our flight, even though they knew we had no checked luggage. When they sent us the transfer details, they did not mention any deadline for changing the time. We thought 24 hours' notice would be fine. In the end we cancelled the transfer and took a taxi, at our own expense of course.
Generally speaking, customer care at this property needs to improve. The reception staff were probably the only unfriendly people we met in Lisbon during our 5-day stay. It is a shame, because the other staff (the porter who helped us with our luggage, the breakfast staff and housekeeping) were very kind and helpful.
A five-star hotel? Maybe, but I found the lobby a bit small: only 4 (!) armchairs and some other uncomfortable seating (like a bus stop). This is probably because a large part of what should have been space for guests has been rented (sold?) to a perfume shop. During our stay I missed having common areas where one can relax.
Breakfast: unfortunately not at the level I expected. They call it a continental breakfast, but there is not much choice, and I haven't seen single-portion packs of butter, jam and honey in hotels of this level for quite a while.
Our spacious room (a "Deluxe") was on a high floor, overlooking Avenida da Liberdade and the rooftops of Lisbon. The cleaning staff are great. Style is always a matter of taste: I did not particularly like the dark colours, grey walls and black furniture everywhere, but that is just my personal taste. The real problem was that the furniture in our room was worn and broken, and urgently needed cleaning. The same goes for the bathroom: the shower had some broken parts, the bidet did not work properly and one of the lights looked as if it was about to fall apart. And in a five-star hotel you would not expect the bathroom door to be held together with black adhesive tape. The room as a whole looks old and worn.
The main problem for me was the noise, both outside and inside. The windows are not soundproof, and Avenida da Liberdade has very heavy traffic day and night, so at times it was difficult to sleep. You can also hear every step and every word in the corridor, because the door is old and does not close properly. So if you stay at this hotel, the rooms on the other side are probably quieter.
In a nutshell, pros and cons:
Pros: location, spacious room, air conditioning, cleaning, view from the room, free airport transfer (be careful if you want to change it later)
Cons: unfriendly reception staff, noise from inside and outside, worn rooms, small lobby, poor communication
Do I recommend it? It depends. It is certainly not worth the 320 euros a night we paid. If you get a better rate, maybe, and ask for a room on the other side. Just don't go expecting a five-star hotel: it is really a four-star, and not a very well-run one."
