My partner and I stayed here in the summer and thought it was an awesome hotel Our room was really clean and spacious (shame no balcony). Its a bit of a walk into the centre but its still in a good location. The pool area isnt brilliant but as we stayed in summer we were able to use the pool by the waterfront. Breakfast was really good too.

This is a high standard conference hotel, a bit impersonal but of high quality. The rooms are spacious and clean, staff are friendly and helpful. The breakfast buffet offered lots of choice but often the quality of the food was rather average, with the juices, coffee and warm breakfast being particularly poor.
Unfortunately, the swimming pool was closed for maintenance while we were there.

Overall we liked the hotel. It's not far form the city center, it's modern and comfortable, the breakfast was excellent, but:
- they say it has a Spa, although a mini jacuzzi, a mini sauna that was not at the right temperature and no masseuse to be found doesn't qualify as a Spa
- the garage was full at the end of the day so we had to park in the street (not a major problem)
- the sheets were not changed after 3 nights, and they probably wouldn't be changed hadn't we asked the cleaning lady to do so.

This hotel will serve nicely as the base for your visit to Ponta Delgada and the island of Sao Miguel.

The hotel is a large modern building of 7 storeys. The designed exterior and lobby are attractive. The reception staff were friendly, efficient and English-speaking.

The room was large and modern. We knew immediately we could stay there for a week. The style is what I would call Danish modern. Wood floor and cabinets.No carpet. Modern bathroom. Safe & fridge. No coffee maker, so bring your own.

The room had no balcony, but it did have a huge window with an outstanding view to the east over the hills and ocean. We were on the 5th floor, but I think you'll get this from any odd-numbered room on floors 3 to 6 (facing the east). The view from the other side is also not bad. The window could be opened, but we kept it shut because of the air conditioning (which worked perfectly). This panorama view was a major plus for us.

Free internet. They had an extra cable, so we just connected to their network. I guess it wasn't wireless, but regardless it was great to have unlimited access to the internet from our laptop while we were there. I should add that the TV worked perfectly and there was a good range of English stations. (We had this in the Algarve as well, so maybe this is a Portuguese thing . In any case, it is great to have more than the news stations that you get in some other southern European countries.)

The other guests at the hotel seemed to be mainly Portuguese, with about a third from other European countries. About a third were families with children.

The breakfast spread was good, excellent even. Good coffee. Nice selection of different kinds of fresh bread. Fresh pineapple and other fruit. Juice, yogurt and cereal. Nice array of local cheeses and cold cuts.Sweet pastries. Bacon. Sausages, but these were just hot dog wieners. We appreciated the health food section. Like at many Portuguese hotels, they served the eggs scrambled. After a few days we realised that they would also make other egg dishes to order. The breakfast, as good as it was, didn't change from day to day so by the end of the week we felt it was lacking in variety.I 'm pretty sure that it will satisfy most European breakfast needs, although one lady there told me she felt the buffet was lacking in vegetables! For English speakers, you can get them to make the eggs you want.

The hotel is located on a street just on the outside of the old town. The street has a modern suburban feel, with larger residential and office buildings. The port and old town are about a 10 minute walk away. It's quite possible to stay at this hotel and explore the old centre of town, but of course it's not located directly in the centre.

My feeling was that the town of Ponta Delgada, as nice as it was, did not have enough activity to make it imperative to stay right in the centre of town. It seemed sort of dead in the evenings, except during the Spiritu Sancto festival.

If you don't feel like walking 10 minutes into town from The Lince, there is a local bus network that takes you into town (or to other places, like the shopping centre). The bus stops are within 50 metres or so of the hotel. Bus C takes you into town; take Bus B to get back.

Like many people staying at the hotel though, our goal was to tour more of the island. So we hired a car for the week. The car hire went quite smoothly. The local operators bring the car to the hotel. There was plenty of free parking under and behind the hotel. We were fortunate to get a very good rate of about 35 euros a night, but it could go as high as 50. If you hire at the airport, the companies charge a fee of around 20 euros or so, so you'll be fine if you take a cab from the airport (10 euros) and hire at the hotel.

There is not much in the immediate vicinity of the hotel. There are perhaps three coffee shops nearby. One restaurant. There is a convenience shop about 200 m. north of the hotel. There is an ATM nearby.

The hotel has a wellness area that consisted of a sauna, small pool and fitness room with three cardio machines. There is a health club across the road, but they only allowed monthly memberships. No training just for one day. I think the total cost to join for a month would have been 60 euros or something like that. We went to the fitness centre at the VIP hotel up the street (about 500 metres). The cost was 7.50 per day.

It occurred to us that we might have preferred to stay at the VIP hotel because of the fitness facilities. These two hotels are very similar in price and quality. The main difference is that The Lince is 500 m. closer to town and has free wifi (a big plus). But if you rent a car, the location wouldn't be a factor. The other advantages of the VIP are that you get a balcony with the room and you can walk easily to the large Sol Mar department and grocery store complex. I thought the TV reception quality and air conditioning were better at The Lince.

The Lince is a good hotel. It's not perfect of course. It's showing its age a little. Sometimes it felt distinctly three star rather than four star. But on the whole you can't go wrong by booking this place.