This is an excellent apartment, and if I could change the AirBnB rating scale I would score it a 4.8 out of 5. There are just a few minor points that when and if corrected would easily warrant a perfect score of 5 and I will get to those in my review. First, I’ll address the location of the apartment, which is something more of an individual requirement depending on what you are looking for in your vacation. The apartment is located in the Alfama neighborhood, which is the oldest surviving neighborhood in Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake which pretty much knocked down the rest of the city. So, you are really staying in the most historical area in Lisbon when you stay here, and I absolutely loved that about this apartment. The apartment is just a minute walk away from the National Cathedral, several small and excellent restaurants, and close to the Castillo de San Jorge. However, my wife would have preferred to stay closer to Praca de Comercio neighborhood where most of the fashion retail shops, well known pastry shops and pharmacies are located. However, in all fairness, this apartment is no more than a 7 to 10 minute walk to the Praca de Comercio, so this might not be a big deal to most families, in the end, it's a subjective decision.
As for the apartment itself, overall, I would have to say that it is very comfortable, but some minor improvements could be made. Let’s start off with the living room, very comfortable and the only air-conditioned room in the apartment. However, the tv in this room stopped working after our 3rd day there (8 days/7-night stay) and I could not get it to restart after that and there were no instructions anywhere of how-to possible trouble shoot this issue. Next is the kitchen, its modern and provided us with everything that we needed. However, some additional touches would have been nice. For example, stocking some water bottles in the refrigerator for arriving guests or more than two coffee packs for the coffee maker (little details that push an AirBnB experience into the wow factor). The kitchen is also the location where the cloths washing/drying unit is located. And here is where there was a little bit of a miscommunication that contributed to missing a perfect score. Before we left on our trip, it was confirmed to me that all the machines in the apartment were all functioning without any issue, however, when we arrived, we were told that the machine was only a washing machine but then 4 days later this was corrected, and we were informed that the machine does both. However, there were no instructions left as to how to use the washing/drying machine. Fortunately, YouTube to the rescue and we were in business. However, although the machine does a good job washing cloths it doesn’t exactly dry them 100% so you will have to use the provided clothing rack to hang out your cloths afterwards in order to get them 100% dry.
Next are the bathrooms, these were very comfortable. Strong water pressure and after spending long days out exploring it was great to get back here and take a hot shower. However, although we loved the bathrooms, here is where we possibly had our biggest issue, only four bathing towels for a family of 4, staying 7 nights. So, washing and drying the towels every so often became a challenge. Of course, this has an easy and a relatively inexpensive fix, provide more towels. I pointed this out to the owner, and I believe that they will be providing more towels in the future, but I would request this before booking a trip just to be on the safe side.
Lastly are the bedrooms. First, the guest bedroom with two small beds. These were great for my two children, 11 and 12. They slept comfortably here and what we did was leave their bedroom door open so that the air conditioner from the living room could reach their room and keep them comfortable. The only thing to note here is that there is no closet space in this room, just a rack in the corner where you can hang some cloths. The main bedroom has a closet with a few hangers that we used to hang up ours and some of our children’s cloths, but we could have used more hangers so instead we had to leave most of our cloths folded inside the closet. Inside the closet you will also find an iron and an ironing board which we used and found to be working just fine. The main bedroom does not have A/C however, the apartment does have one of these mobile AC units that did provide some cooling, but it might not be enough for everyone, especially, those that like to sleep in a very cold room, however, I think this could be achieved most of the year by just leaving the bedroom window open.
Overall, I liked this apartment very much and would have no problem staying here again