Torre Velha - Albufeira, Portugal     

I booked into this hotel with my husband and two adult children, expecting a quiet hotel but with an a la carte menu for the meals, with access to night clubs/ bars for the children being a short distance away. The hotel was next to a building site that started work at 07:30 every morning, very nosily.at night it sounded like the room above were rearranging the furniture all night and doors were constantly banging shut as they had faulty locks.It was very windy. The safe in the room was broken and unusable. There were signs everywhere warning you not to eat in your rooms or bring any food into the hotel from outside.But there were no facilities to eat in the hotel betwe en 15:00 and 18:00 hours. when we arrived for dinner we were told that it was a that it was one starter a choice of two main courses and one dessert or fresh fruit, not the a la carte they had advertised. Reception would close for most of the day and the main door was locked. a phone call for a taxi costs 1 euro, so its cheaper to use your english mobile, if you can get them to give you the number?? It took a lot of effort to engage the staff as there were so few of them and they were overworked, they tried to be helpful and friendly but just did not have the time to succeed. The rooms were kept clean with towels and sheets changed regularly, the showers were brilliant.The nearest night life was a lot further away than we expected so my teenage children found it hard to find things to do at night. The TV was supposed to have English channels, but the satellite box was faulty (according to the staff it had been so for over a month)and they finally managed to get BBC1 on our third night there, although they were getting other Sky channels in the bar, these were always tunned to music or sport. The internet access was limited to one pc in the hotel and we could not use the advertised access on our laptop, we never recieved an adequate explantion as to why. I was extremely dissappointed with this hotel it did not live up to the advertisments my travel quoted when I booked it. It is very basic with a limited menu and we were repeatedly told that things on the menus or in the bar had run out and they were waiting for fresh stock. the owners do not appear to care about there guests so long as they get there money.There is No entertainment, but the biggest problem was the lack of staff and the noise from the building site.I shall not be staying there again

Torre Velha is a simple hotel, great value for money. It's in a beautiful location, a couple mins (walking) from several natural beaches, by a natural reserve, and it has the friendliest staff ever. If you don't mind the aged decor and not having much around in the neighbourhood, it's the best place. It's also as clean as an old place can be - and I am picky about cleanliness. The restaurant was great when I ate there, but I hear not consistently good. Enough places are around, though, that for a week you can walk and eat in different places. (During the 2nd week you'd be eating at the same places twice, unless you went to Albufeira, the local Benidorm, abt 5 km away, a 45 min walk or about 8e by taxi.) Even the other guests were friendlier than you find in most hotels, and because it is quite secluded, you actually meet them. Construction was going on on one side of the building in Apr 2008, but surprisingly it wasn't too noisy. I recommend this to anybody who is not looking for a modern tower hotel in the middle of buzz!