We have just returned from a 2 week stay at the Joinal Villas in Portugal. It is advertised as having Kids Club, which is no longer there. The children's play park that is advertised is not suitable for children under 3 (no baby swings, high climbing frame). The villas are located in a rural town outside Albufeira, there for nothing to do at all during the day if you don't have car hire and the nearest supermarket is a long trek away especially in the heat! The villas are very dated and dirty. When we arrived the floors were filthy and the kitchen was dirty (mould around fridge, cracked tiles and oven not clean, ants on work top). The kitchen is the worst room in the villa. The villa internally is not suitable for young children. The stairs being hard granite/marble are an accident waiting to happen. Although there are stair gates our 2 year old could easlily open them! We went with our 3 children 5 year old, 2 years and 9 month baby. There was nothing to do for our children in the resort therefor we drove everywhere. Older children would find this place extremely boring. I believe it is more suited to couples who want peace and quiet.
We also found everything very expensive. Many people we spoke to said the same. Food was so expensive compared to the Uk and if you are going and you have a baby take lots of nappies, wipes etc as they are very expenive.
The rep is also nowhere to be seen if a problem. She is supposed to be there only 2 mornings a week for half an hour, but we only saw her once and the office on site was always closed.
The double bed is like sleeping on a brick, think the tiled floor would have been more comfortable!
We made this holiday enjoyable but the accommodation being in a better location and more family orientated would have made it better.
Def not a "Style" Villa.
Albufeira is a bit tacky and dirty. We drove to Villamoura which is far superior and with lots more places to see and where we wish we had booked in the frist place.
Good points of villa - Cheap to rent. Weather was great.

Located within a short drive of many beaches (Sao Rafael, Gale, Castelo, Evaristo) makes this small group of villas perfect for families. All of the beaches incidentally also have great cafes / restaurants on them. We ate at the one on Gale beach where we had some delicious fresh fish. We also ate at a place down the road (on the way to Coehlo beach) http://www.o-marinheiro.com/ The food was delicious.

The villas are also within a short drive of various theme parks and lovely villages / towns including zoomarine
http://www.zoomarine.com/
and Silves (which has a lovely castle).
http://www.castles.nl/eur/pt/si/si.html

The villa was regularly cleaned and was relatively well equipped for self catering but could do with simple items such as a sieve, salt and pepper, wooden spoons.

The weather wasn't great when we visited but there was still lots to do. Since the pools aren't heated though it meant short dips only in them. There was a little kids park though so our 3 and a half year old loved it and the whole experience.

There is a kids club which our daughter only went to once but she loved that also and the reps for this brought my wife a handmade card, a cake and a bottle of wine for her birthday whilst we were there!

Overall a great stay and would definitely go back given the opportunity.

Our 12 th visit here was not disapointing. Manuel the complex manager was very attentive. This is a great location for town and beach as well as a lovely pool and secure gated gardens. We always meet up with Families who return year after year.
Lots of excellent restaurants within easy walking distance.
Looking forward to our next visit there

Sorry if this review is long but I don't want to miss anything. We loved this place!
After staying at Joinal Villas we felt that the online photos and description from Style holidays didn't do it justice. The villas inside are spacious with 2 floors (villa about the same size if not bigger than some 2 bed houses Ive seen!). Very clean and tidy with nice furniture, fixed stair gates at top and bottom of stairs (necessary as the villas have no carpet, as with most villas and properties in warm countries and the stairs are hard marble). Two large bedrooms, one with double bed and one with twin, enough room in both bedrooms to have a cot with still enough space to move around. Also there are wall mounted air conditioners in each bedroom which look fairly new, work with remote control and we found were not very loud at all and our 4 and 2 year old slept perfectly with the air con on. Lots of hanging space and drawer space in both rooms. Upstairs bathroom with shower over small bath (good size for small children - adults would not be able to stretch out in this bath); a bidet and sink and wc (and they provide a step in both bathrooms up and down for children to stand on - how thoughtful).
Downstairs has large livingroom/dining room with large table that seats six, small wall mounted colour tv with some uk channels (B1, B2, ITV, 5, cbeebies and BBC3 - one apartment I heard had a bit of bother getting cbeebies however but ours was fine - only watched at end of day playing so we could get on with dinner etc of course!).
Downstairs bathroom has a good shower (good power and easy temp control, a sink and wc). A medium/small kitchen with microwave, full oven with hob and dishwasher!! (we didn't realise this and had to buy tablets for d/washer which we could have brought from home) what a treat not to have to do washing up! Full size fridge freezer too. Style holidays had left on our arrival in our villa a welcome food pack with a bottle of water, some long life milk, loaf of bread, some jam and butter sachets, tea and coffee and sugar to tide us over til we got chance to go to supermarket, these were really appreciated indeed.
There are big double patio doors (sliding) leading from the lounge onto a really quite large patio area which is completely enclosed with lovely white waist height walls and small shrubs just growing over, the patio area is gated (no escaping toddlers) and it has a nice white table and 4 chairs with 4 large sunloungers, and a BBQ too! all of this is scrupiously clean. From our patio we can see both swimming pools, one large for adults or older children and one paddling pool for little ones which is a nice size and good depth (adult kneeheight roughly I recall). There is some lovely green grass areas with palm trees and at the end of the villa site (within spitting distance of the pools ) are the little swings and slide area which is super safe with rubber style flooring, nothing big but perfect for small children. This area also has a little villa next to the playground which houses the almost daily kids club, run by Style/Thomson children's reps (Vicky and Stacey) who are lovely and make you feel very secure that they will look after your children for you (age from 3 to 9 I think - definitely the lower age limit is 3). My son wanted to go there about 4 times and loved it as he made a very special friend who also wanted to go to kids club. They kept them out of the hot sun in airconditioned room with various toys and did drawing and painting and biscuit decorating too which of course my 4 year old was most impressed with. The session is for 2 hours in the middle of the day and yet if your child wanted to come back to the villa if they missed their parents the rep respected this (happened once) and held his hand and brought him back to us which was fine.
The manager there of the villas was Manuel who spoke perfect English and was so helpful, professional and was regularly on site and contactable. There was a maid service every day or so, to empty bins and to change towels every other day and once a week I think was a sheet change (they also made beds every other day) - this was all fine in our opinion, as it wasn't a hotel and we were self catering we were grateful to have this service. (Bath towels and tea towels were provided but you have to bring your own beach towels).
The only negative (which is probably down to Style holliday perhaps - I may be wrong) they charged £20 per WEEK for cot hire! Where else is a young baby/toddler supposed to sleep - that logic surely means they should charge us all a supplement to sleep in a bed! I was really cross about this so I borrowed a really lightweight cot/tent from a friend of mine, as I wanted to save money and truthfully begrudged paying £40 for my 2 year old to have the luxury of somewhere to sleep.
We would recommend Joinal Villas to anyone with very young children. If your children are say older than 11 there is not much to do other than swim and go on the swings (!!?) and of course the nearby beaches so as the villas and the area surrounding is rather quiet, but we hired a car which we felt was really important (but not all people did and seemed happy to get taxis where necessary).
We will certainly go back there again - some people we'd met there had been 3 years running so there's a good advert for you.
Don't go if you want a rip roaring night life. Don't go if you don't like cute little children. Do go if you want a sunny holiday in a safe and clean villa with a nice couple of pools where at night you can sit on your own patio while the children are safe and you are still in your own property!