Pinhal da Marina - Vilamoura, Portugal     

Stayed here for a week in what we assume must be one of the newer studio apartments. Very spacious, well equipped and clean. It overlooked the smaller and less busy of the two pools, at the far end of the development. The on-site mini-market did not appear to have much to offer, but the nearest supermarket was only 10 minutes walk away, and adeqate for our needs - continental breakfast and a few drinks. Another, larger one, was a further 5 minutes walk. The nearest restaurant is in the same mall as the supermarket. It has an Italian name, Casa al forno, but seems to have acquired a Chinese cook, judging from the menu, so we just kept walking. The marina with abundant restaurants is a further five minutes beyond that. The uphill walk back to the apartment complex, which is referred to in some reviews, is no more than a gentle slope.

Got back at the weekend from a week's stay in Pinhal Da Marina. First of all, Villamoura is a nice place in general and there are some really nice restaurants (mostly not on the marina) with very reasonable prices. Lotsa nice flashy cars about too and tons of savage villas. Right, on to the apartment review. I did plenty of research on this site looking for a decent place to stay and at the time Pinhal da Marina was sitting at #6 in the list and it was available for when I was going so decided to stay there. A lot of the reviews were in favor of this place. However, in the meantime the place must have gone to hell. It's like an overgrown garden now with sprinkers that come on at anytime of the day...forcing you to wheel buggies through them at times. Our appmt was down about the equivalent of one storey (12 large steps). We got one of the old type ones, not the fancy ones u see in the pics so we decided to see if we could get another one...mainly to avoid the steps. We were shown to another with the white sofas but not really an upgrade at all. They wanted ?140 extra to stay here. Joke. We stayed put. The rooms are VERY basic and they dont even have a kettle. We spoke to another couple who had a similar experience and they were also asked for extra money to move rooms. The last day we had a faulty tap and we came back to the appmt to find it flooded. The facilities guy came out and just laughed. We still enjoyed the holiday a lot but I would never think of recommending this place to anyone. Dont go by all the positive reviews here, just just this place a miss. There are plenty of other nicer places with a lower rating on this site but are far far nicer.