This is a lovely hotel with plenty to recommend it – but don’t go there if you are looking for peace and tranquillity.
First, the many plus points – the hotel is in a beautiful situation, it is well designed and the public areas are light, airy and spacious. The rooms are furnished to a high standard and even the most basic category has plenty of space. The grounds are extensive so even when the hotel is full it doesn’t feel too over-crowded. When we were there in mid-July there were plenty of sunbeds available – and there was not any early reserving of the best spots, although this did seem to creeping in towards the end of our stay. As well as all the golf facilities, there is a good water sports station on the beach, although the Atlantic is a bit cold for water skiing etc even in the summer! The beach is extensive and nice and clean, but as all beaches in Portugal are public, it can get quite busy. There is a good choice of restaurants at the hotel and the food is excellent. But undoubtedly the best thing about this hotel is the staff. They are universally excellent -polite, friendly, professional, helpful. From the room cleaners to the senior waiters, guest relations to concierge, everyone is committed to delivering quality service and ensuring their guests are well looked after. I could think of a good many five star hotels that could learn a lesson or two in staff attitude from the Sheraton Pine Cliffs.
A few observations – as I said, even the standard rooms have a lot of space, so if you are planning to be out and about for most of the day, these are more than adequate. Because the hotel is low rise, I would recommend asking for rooms on the second (ie top) floor, as this minimises any noise from the restaurants or pools that may be beneath your window. This is particularly important if you ask for a sea view room – the hotel is set back from the cliff so you will make the most of your view by being on the top floor.
Although there is both a rain shower and hand shower with the bath, I would have expected a separate shower in a hotel that in every other area sets high standards. Maybe higher room categories have this.
While the food in the restaurants is excellent, you are of course paying five star prices – but the concierge has a list of restaurants outside the hotel. We tried four and they were all extremely good, and the prices in the ‘typical Portuguese’ were particularly good value. Some are very local to the hotel so you won’t have to pay a fortune in taxi fares either.
So what’s the drawback? This is something that you cannot really blame the hotel for, but it is the behaviour of a lot of the other guests! I was going to single out misbehaving children but their parents are equally at fault for letting them get away with it. We are most certainly not anti-children – we have one of our own, although he is now a teenager – but when he was younger we would not have let our son get away with the sort of behaviour we encountered time and time again at the Pine Cliffs! Are rich children more petulant than the less well off? The sound of whining began at breakfast and was constant throughout the day and well into the evening. Children were allowed to run around in the restaurants, often playing football and other games. The worst example was the evening we spent in the Moroccan restaurant. With the sort of spicy food on offer, we felt sure this would be relatively child free. Instead, the place was overrun with children, and as most did not seem to like the food, they ran riot, getting in the way of the serving staff, the belly dancer who was performing and even bouncing footballs in between the tables. But who would have been at fault if a waiter had spilt hot food on one of the children or the belly dancer had fallen on one of them?
We were lucky that we did not have any children in nearby bedrooms – we did speak to one couple who were regularly woken at 6.30am by children shouting and running up and down the corridor outside.
There was evidence that the hotel had tried to deal with this problem in the past – there was a sign (no longer in use I fear) saying that certain areas of the grounds were not for the under fives, one swimming pool was shallow, the other fairly deep. However, there were plenty of children – many with water wings – in the deeper pool, along with an assortment of inflatables that made ordinary swimming nigh on impossible at times! And although one restaurant did say it was not for the under eights, again this rule did not seem to be observed very closely.
In a sense, the hotel is a victim of its own success. It is a perfect family hotel and it therefore attracts a lot of families. That’s fine, but if there are any parents reading this and considering booking, I would just ask that they show some consideration for other guests and control their children. It can be done without spoiling anyone’s fun, believe me! And to the hotel, I would suggest that they look into putting in another adults only swimming pool somewhere.
If you are a couple, looking for a quiet romantic break, this may not be the place for you – and certainly not in the school holidays – unless you are extremely tolerant (and own a pair of ear plugs!).
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
