Good…..
The apartment was spotlessly clean.
4 coffee pods had been left for us.
You can hear the sound of the ocean.
Vila Do Conde is 15 mins drive away and a very pretty town.
They accommodated our request to stay for an hour longer than the usual check out time, which was appreciated.
Not so good (some of this is out of the owners control, but it was still relevant to our enjoyment of the property)…..
Unfortunately there is a lot of building work and numerous building sites within very close proximity and work going on all around the property. From the house you can see three large cranes closeby, so with builders starting very early each morning and at the weekends, there is continual building noise. There is a site right next to the property that has been cleared ready for work to start, which would add to current noise levels.
The property has been very poorly finished, eg the toilet is positioned too close to the sink so you can only sit on it sideways! There was a leak in the bathroom meaning the floor was always damp, slippy and had to be continually mopped, which was very inconvenient. (I reported this on Day 1, but they did not suggest fixing it.)
The advert suggests it is a luxury property but our opinion was that it is far from it. It is badly finished and equipped eg just one thin pillow provided on each bed, cheap IKEA furniture, although advertised as a “beach house” no beach towels/items to be used at the beach, no bedside lamps in the bedrooms, only 3 loungers despite 4 people booked to stay, no fans, in the bedrooms no oven gloves…I could go on.
We slept badly the first night because of the lack of a second pillow, so I asked where the extra pillows were assuming we just hadn’t found them, however they replied saying there werent any and they wouldn’t be willing to provide them. I was very surprised at this response, as it on it’ll would have been very quick and cheap to resolve and would have made a big difference to our comfort during our stay.
The heavy garden furniture was kept in the garage and when Jose handed over the key, he said if we wanted to use the furniture we would need to carry it all out to the garden and afterwards store it back in the garage overnight, as if not and it was stolen it would be our responsibility to replace it (this was not in the house rules). It wasn’t realistic to do this so sadly, we were only able to eat inside.
This also made us feel that security was an issue in the area, as they were concerned about outdoor furniture being stolen, given the house is all single storey and the garden is very open, I was not comfortable to leave windows open at night and no a/c or fans meant it was very stuffy and uncomfortable at night.
The “garden” is a concrete yard. With the lack of furniture or flowers, it is fairly ugly and there is no view, other than building sites.
A neighbour has a loud yappy dog that often wakes up and barks throughout the night.
Unfortunately the house was a big disappointment for us. It would have been easy to resolve - at least some - of the issues, but the reality is it has all been done on the cheap and the owner was defensive and unwilling to try and resolve its faults.