The location, the Alfama district was very interesting. It's centuries old and charming, and be prepared to climb a lot of hills and walk a lot of stairs.
Patricia was responsive to problems we ran into at the apartment, however she wasn't able to fix the couple of issues right away or even during our stay.
I agree with another reviewer, the apartment is more suitable for 1-2 people. Even though there are more beds available, the living area is just too cramped.
It should be noted that there is no kitchen per se, just a 2 burner hot plate you plug in, plus a coffee maker and a kettle. More importantly, the cooking space is actually in the bathroom. This was not mentioned in the description of the apartment. Had we known this, we would not have stayed there.
Other issues, although we understand the building is old, like most in the historic Alfama district, there are ways the host/owners could make the place more comfortable for guests.
All the pots and pans had loose handles. There were only 3 cups there, and maybe 3 glasses, but there were 4 of us. The furniture quality was very poor. The beds upstairs and downstairs are very uncomfortable, you can feel the wires on your back or side. The pillows are awful, my neck hurt trying to sleep on it. There is no support whatsoever and they are lumpy. The shutter covering the balcony door would only roll up halfway, and we had a very hard time hanging our clothes to dry on the clothes line as you need to stand at that balcony door to do that. The shutter on the window side worked fine.
The shower is very small and would not fit anyone tall or broad. The shower doors were very flimsy. The hooks to hang your towel on was half falling off the door it was hanging on. The outlet in the cooking area wasn't working. We let Patricia know, and she sent someone over to fix it 2 days later, however, the main electric panel was shut off and they forgot to turn it back on. So when we arrived home in the evening, there were no lights, and we had to ask a neighbour downstairs to help us find the panel to have electricity again. But because the panel was left off, we ran out of hot water to shower that night. 2 out of 4 of us had to shower in cold water. The hot water tank took about 10 hrs to heat back up.
The night table was flimsy if you put anything on it. The tank above the toilet was dripping, so there was a small puddle of water on the toilet cover or the floor. It would also drip on your head. It just felt like everything was going to break if you touch it.
I guess you get what you pay for. We had a budget to watch, but had we known about the above issues, we would have paid more for a better place, especially because we stayed a week.
I would not recommend staying here. The description was not accurate.