Estalagem da Ponta do Sol

This hotel has a beautiful setting built into the cliffs of Ponto do Sol, with great views from all areas, the rooms, the pool and the restaurant. It has clearly been thoughtfully designed to fit into its surroundings and the simplicity of this design creates a lovely relaxed atmosphere. The breakfast is ok, the dinner was very good (though more expensive than other restaurants in the town - to be expected given the superior food & great views on offer). The hotel provide free return shuttles to the Levada walks each day which we found to be a huge bonus. Highly recommend this hotel.

Breathtaking location on a cliff, beautifully maintained gardens and pool and a lot of more or less secluded spots with sunbeds, beanbags or chairs to enjoy the views. Beautiful bright and spacious rooms. Copious breakfast. What we liked most is that they will do everything in their possibility to make your stay enjoyable. A few examples; the sauna closes at 9 pm, but if you want to use it later, you just ask and they will adjust the timer for you. The hotel has a service that will drop you at a starting point for levada walks (location differs with the day of the week) at no cost at all. For longer walks they provide picknic which will cost you only 8 euros and pick you up at the endpoint. If the poolbar is closed, you can still enter it and grab a drink yourself. Just fill in the slip which is provided next to the fridge, note what you took and your roomnumber and all is OK.

Very good hotel, on a most unique location (High on the rocks above the village and the ocean) We had a really nice stay at the hotel. All staff is very friendly and the reception desk is most helpful. Whatever you need, they will call around and make it happen! We spend 5 hours with a taxi driver who drove us around the Island for some fantastic views. We explained what we wanted to see and the reception desk called a cabdriver and explained everything in Portuguese so he knew exactly what we wanted. The cabdriver (Elso) was also great! He was a great guide and very friendly man! Beds in the hotel are great and everything you need in a hotel room is present. The only negative thing about the bathroom is the shower.... It looks great, and is a separate shower (no bathtub) but is is very difficult to shower with hot water... The more you turn towards the hot side, the less water that comes out of the shower. And it gets to hot, then when you turn to the other side, much more water comes out, but the water is almost cold... This could definately be improved a bit about the room. Food in the ''Kabo" bar and restaurant are delicious. Only for diner, there is really not enough choice. We booked halfboard and only ate diner at the hotel 3x in 7 days. When you have halfboard you can combine the daily menu with the regular menu card. But both only have a few possible choices and the regular menu card did not change all week. So food = delicious, but not enough choice, would recommend to book only breakfast. Breakfast = prefect! One last point to improve is the hygiene part of the hotel. When there is wind and leaves are blown into the hallways of the hotel by f.e. the elevator towards the rooms, 3-4 days later those leaves are still there... Which makes you wonder how often and well the cleaning is done. By the pool it was a similar issue, The tree hanging over the pool looses a lot of needles in and around the infinity pool. Those needles where only removed once during our stay (at the last day). Also cleaning of the windows of the rooms is not (well) done when the room switches guests... as they where full of spots. This is not that important you might think, but again these little things make you wonder if cleaning is done well. But the room looks good and clean :) Gardens are well maintained and look beautiful. Also swimming in the affinity pool is amazing! What a view!! => The somewhat "negative points" I mentioned are just some working points for the hotel. => Our experience in Estalagem Da Ponta Do Sol was a great one and we will come back in some time.