Situation excellent, if you like to walk around in the city´s narrow steets. The citadel, the port and the "Turismo", from which the bus trips start, is only in 10 minutes´ walk distance.

Because of the winter season we dit not try the swimming pool at all. The street and air port noises were not disturbing (5. floor)

The "continental breakast" was as promised - but during 14 days there was no variation - although the local breads and expecially the fresh cheese were really good. But no fruits or berries, and the cold cuts were always of the same sort, as well as the ready-cut, half soft and rather tasteless cheese.

The room had no safe, but the beds were good- not too soft - and separated, so you did not disturbe your spouse when turning etc. The bathroom (and the shower) were o.k., and the room cleaning was both blameless and -doing the beds - also amusing. The air conditioning worked well and warmed up the room rapidly, which was pleasant because of the very wet weather conditions.

But the lifts! They made -always when stopping operation- terrible noise, some kind of "mourning", which was very disturbing. Otherwise they worked without any difficulties.

And then the local (or common southern European, espacially Balkan?) habit to smoke all the time and everywhere without any restrictions, made in one late evening/night a frightening situation. Some stonehead went in the lift with his burning cigarrette- fireing off the brand alarm! This happened 5 times during the Saturday late evening/night. And the hotel reception personnel was not at all capable to handle the situation. Otherwise it had not happneded repateadly.A brand alarm in a hotel is really a severe situation. This kind of false alarms are not acceptable with only "we are sorry, but there were very much (local) people in the hall last night and someone went in the lift.." Havn´t we not read enough of severe hotel fires?? As a Scandinavian I am only astonished of the by us as an old-fashioned and reprehensible habit to smoke in public areas.

In the neighbourhood are at least tree little restaurants (one is "next door") - offering also local dishes. They are in favor of the local people,and therefore we also visited them all. We can recommend them.

We stayed for 3 nights at Hotel Ponta Delgada during Sept 04. We paid 90E and it was definitely not worth it, maybe if you can get a rate of 60E it would be. The breakfast was decent and open 700-1030 which made our daily plans more flexible. Some of the staff was not that friendly and didn't speak good English which made it difficult to find out about the various attractions on the island. No rental cars at the hotel, however they were close by and brought one to us when we called. The hotel is close to the waterfront - by the fort and about 15 minutes walking to the mall as well as local shops. The beds were very hard and the shower sprayed all over if you had too much water pressure, but the hot water was nice. We requested one double bed and got two singles pushed together. The pool is a little rusty and yucky so we didn't swim there. The elevators were ify and made me nervous - sometimes they didn't stop at the right level - maybe a little below. The elevators also don't have a sensor so they will close on your arm. Parking was available, just make sure you know when to pay otherwise you'll get a ticket. The housekeepers left the balconey door unlocked when they cleaned, but did a good job cleaning. The safe didn't have a lock and there was a 13" TV hanging from the ceiling. The rooms were tiny, but sufficient for our needs. It was nice to have a safe, warm place to come home to after a long day of traveling. Sao Miguel is a beautiful island and well worth any heartache for the gorgeous scenery, excellent food and great adventures.