We really like AI and we know what to expect. But let's talk about misleading advertising with this one...

We booked a superior room with garden view ( the other option was pool view and we were afraid of the noise ). In the pictures of the hotel and the brochure, it seemed to be a modern boutique hotel, but it was far from it.

Upon arrival we were given a superior room pool view, but it was a view to the "quiet" pool and we were told it was silent. When we opened the door we were shocked, the room was old, tired, chipped furniture, cheapest possible ceramic floor tiles. The bed was 2 single pushed together and both were sagging in the middle, but the worse was the bathroom, there was mold and dirt everywhere. We collected several tissues of dirt in the shower door, shower head, corners, and went to the reception to complain. They sent a cleaning lady and she agreed that the room was dirty, she offered to clean it but there was nothing she could do about the mold. We requested then another room.

In the phone they told me I would get another superior room but instead of the green wing, it would be in the violet wing. Because my husband is foreigner ( I am brazilian he is dutch ) we were given an upgrade to a sea view suite. This room was much cleaner and double the size, even had a jacuzzi. It was an improvement, but even that room was not a room I expected to see in a 5* resort. Same cheap floor, cheap furniture, curtains with stains and due to the proximity with the stairs, very noisy. I was a non smoking room, but the bathroom reeked the 8 days we spent there.

The quiet swimming pool was nice but had very little sun and it was not that nice to relax with 200 room balconies looking at you. The bigger swimming pool was too crowded and always so dirty that we could never see the bottom of it.

There were loungers by the beach, in the hotel looking at the beach and around the pool. If you wanted a nice place, you would have to reserve before 6 am, and yes, there are warnings saying that reserving places is forbidden... but everybody does it anyway. The hotel was not build to be an all inclusive, so the public space is not enough for the amount of rooms.

The food in the buffet is really good, although a bit repetitive. There are 2 a la carte restaurants, one with regional food and other with portuguese food. We managed to get a reservation for the regional, but when we tried to get a reservation for the portuguese, the front desk clerk made fun of us because it was 6:20am and according to him, at 5:40am the line was already by the end of the lobby ( reservations start at 6 am ).

Was there nothing good? Drinks by the pool were very nice, people were served fast, nice quality alcoholic drinks. Coconut water and soft drinks are available at all times and there is no line to get it.

In the end, if this hotel had cost us 50% of what it did, it could have been tolerable, but we paid 5* prices and stayed in a 3* hotel.

Next time I will pay extra to stay at the Nannai or go directly to Bahia in the Iberostar. That is a damn good all-inclusive!