Iberotel Praia Monte Gordo - Monte Gordo, Portugal 

The Hotel and rooms are spacious and relatively clean, breakfast is of a good quantity but if you drink tea and coffee beware they use machines for the hot drinks and the water is not boiled leaving a "taste". The Al a Carte restaurant was closed and the meals offerred in the restaurant were expensive and included shell fish in some form or another. The snack bar is room service and quite expensive. The games room and gym were not open. The hotel is not on the beach but accross the road to the beach, this did not bother us as we did not have youngsters with us but this could be a problem. on the plus side the rooms at the front of the hotel from the ffith floor upwards had fabulous views. Overall it was good value for money but we would urge that you be prepared. We would return to Montegordo as the resort is clean and quiet but would not stay at this hotel again.

We just got back from a 5 day break at this hotel. We booked through Travel Republic who I felt were very good, helpful and efficient and sorted out our transfer to and from the hotel costing around £45. The hotel location is brilliant and right opposite one of the nicest beaches I have come across and it's LONG! We found a peaceful spot after approx a 20 minute walk along the beach. You have to pay for the loungers and a lot of people used there own towels or something to lie on. Weather was good. The hotel is along a main road which has restaurants, bars, supermarkets. Everything you need really. We went half board but we wasn't overly keen on the food to be honest. I would say 2 out of 5 days was OK. Oh, I must mention that you get free wine and beer with your evening meal and soft drinks but no hot drinks and there are no tea making facilities in the room. Very reasonable to eat out though. We used the gym but had to pay 5 euros each, which was fine. No air con. The pool / jacuzzi area is very nice and they have really good changing and shower facilities downstairs too. On our last day as we had a late flight, we were allowed to use the shower / changing room downstairs and it was really nice and the shower facilities were excellent. The restaurant staff, well they just did there job and no more. No communication, no smile, no hello, but that's fine, just wanted to eat anyway! The reception staff were helpful, but I found the staff generally unhelpful and they didn't cater much for the English. Very few of the restaurants had English menus, but we found a really nice place if we fancied lunch, approx 5 minutes from the hotel called Ed and Willems ( i think that's the right spelling) who were really friendly and nothing was too much for them. All the staff there spoke good English and the atmosphere there was just nice and chilled. We did go on a day tour which took us to a gypsy market in Quatemeira, which too has a nice beach. We weren't too keen on the market so we spent the time on the beach instead while we waited to move on to the next spot! I would stay here as it seemed quite a good place and a lot more English/Tourists there and then we went on to Vilamoura and Albuferia. I wasn't that impressed with either of these to be honest, but we had a lovely icecream in Vilamoura, place for the rich! If you want the night life then Albuferia is good for that and the bars are in abundance there. I thought the beach in Monte Gordo was a lot nicer. If you want a livelier holiday then you would be bored staying here as it's about 1 1/2 hours to Albuferia and approx 45 minutes from the airport . In all the break was lovely, weather was good, we stayed in a nice suite as we wanted the space and had a balcony and the food wasn't too bad. It's a lovely place to go for a short break. I would go back there but I would try another part of the Algarve first and I missed out on shopping! The Algarve is a lovely place. Have a good holiday.