Unfortunately there were a number of issues with our booking:
1. A broken kettle and toaster which were replaced 3 days later (however, we were kindly given some complimentary coffee pods along with the replacements)
2. We were offered a baby bath and a high chair upon arrival but we were only provided the items on day 3 of our one week stay. Having said that, Mafalda kindly offered us her own high chair, though with better communication this could have been avoided. The baby bath was essential to us as the shower cubicle was much too small to fit an adult and a baby without any risks. As was the high chair. Have you ever tried feeding a crawling baby? It’s hard work. Food gets everywhere with a high chair, let alone without one and no washing machine to clean everything up later!
3. There is no washing machine as advertised and we specifically searched for apartments with a washing machine in order to avoid over packing with a young baby that dirties everything. We did not appreciate the false advertising of this, since we had filtered out other apartments due to not having washing machines as it was one of our conditions.
4. The facilities are in poor condition, the shower tap leaks, the shower doors spill water onto the floor and there is a general smell of sewage in the bathroom. We are also pretty sure that there was water coming from this pipe like thing in the ground of the bathroom as well as leaking from the shower. The bathroom floor was just permanently wet and we only had one bathroom floor mat. Luckily there was a mop though it is no fun to mop everyday on your holiday! The kitchen also had a leak we had to clean up daily and we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. We also had half a day with no hot water in the apartment and no communication about it from the hosts. Luckily the next day the hot water was back. The bathroom had a hot towel rack that didn’t work and had exposed wires which were ducked taped together.
5. There appears to be no working extractor fan in the kitchen, therefore cooking had to be with open windows always
6. There were no batteries in the dvd remote and the DVD player wasn’t even connected to the television.
7. The meo TV box remote was not the right remote for the box so we had no access to the television for 4 days until a technician came over to set up a new box with a new remote. With a young baby, we spent most of our evenings at the apartment and we expected to have a working television for us adults to enjoy.
8. Communication and responsiveness with the host was extremely poor. We were only given check-in information on the day of our booking despite multiple requests for information before the trip as we would be arriving at night with a 9 month old baby. We were also given the post code very late which meant we were not able to fill out the passenger locator forms (required by the Portuguese government for covid security) with plenty of notice. You’d expect to be given the full address, including which floor and door number, after having paid the full fees. We were never given any information for checking out.
9. The apartment is definitely not recently refurbished like the description says. Maybe 10 years ago it was but the description really needs to be updated to reflect the true state. It really needs some Time Love and Care. The main door handle was hanging by one screw and was very wobbly, the bathroom door barely closed and bathroom unit had a lot of water damage. The photos online are not accurate as most furniture has been moved around or just changed (in itself, not a deal breaker, but we like to know that what we see in the photos and description is what we get, there was no rug in the living room for example, but there was a desk), we are not given 4 pillows as the photos suggest, only one per person and the blackout curtain in the bedroom was broken. The guide book was also very much out of date, at least 10 years out of date because the metro map didn’t have the new extension all the way to the airport. It is worth having an updated guide book in the flat if it says they provide one. It is also worth having a little information about rubbish collections for non native speakers but it wasn’t really an issue for us.
The good stuff:
Good location, surrounded by multiple metro outlets, multiple supermarkets and two malls.
The apartment is walking distance to a few tourist locations, giving options to stay more local and still feel like you’ve done and seen something interesting. It is a good sized flat for a small family which included a king sized bed and comfortable mattress, a travel cot for our baby (however, the cot mattress was too soft. For smaller babies it could be a risk of suffocation), two towels (though three would have been better for two and a baby for a whole week but we came prepared for that), shower gel, kitchen detergent and dishwasher tablets (although we completely avoided the dishwasher for fear of a massive leak). The flat also included some kitchen basics such as salt and olive oil.