Vasco Da Gama Reviews

This hotel is living on its past reputation and needs a complete refurbishment!After several room changes {1 room flooded by rain,second toilet not working}got decent room but way behind standard of other 3 star hotels! Dining room crowded, no choice if going in half an hour after start of dining time,card games going on above with local residents{very annoying whilst hotel guests are "dining" especially as some also smoked}more like a works canteen than a dining room! Never again!

Our group consisted of 4 fifty somethings looking for a weeks relaxation.We had read the comments in HU so knew what to expect.The hotel is in a prime location backing on to what must be the best beach on the Algarve (clean white sand, which goes on for miles)The hotel itself was ok if a little jaded.The room was small but very clean as was the bathroom.Our room overlooked the main road, but was not too noisy.The buffet meals were a dissappointment(fairly dull, repetative and a little uninspired.(I was looking forward to trying chicken piri-piri,but chicken of any kind was not on the menu at all during our weeks stay!If you like lots of fish you are well catered for.On the plus side there is a kiddies pool plus a large main pool which is surrounded by very pleasant well tended gardens.The hotel is well maintained and the staff are generally very professional if a little aloof!

Montegordo itself has plenty of bars and restaurants although they all seemed a bit samey.Visitors to this resort come from Germany,Holland,UK as well as lots of locals. The town also boasts a large casino which offers a nightly show as well as the usual gambling.

All in all the hotel could have been better but does have many good points.
(Great location,superb beach etc),but beware ,the sea temperature was like Skegness in January!!! A pleasant enough holiday but for our first visit to Portugal we could have chosen better.

HYPNOSE

So the last Bastian of the Old style British holiday Hotel is alive and well in the form of the Vasco De Gama Hotel Monte Gordo.
Built in the late 60's the Vasco Da Gama stands proud on a prime beach position, staking it's claim on the tourist trade good and proper!
But now some 30 years on, this aged accommodation is at last showing signs of tiredness.

We knew well in advance what was to be expected from this dinosaur of accommodation having read in full the cries of woe from fellow travelers.

So, check in at the hotel. Painless enough, though the staff were are protected from the reaches of the incoming guests by a1960's wooden desk reaching from one side of the lobby to the other.
Resplendent in ancient teak, this ";customer barricade"; was built to withstand the most obnoxious of guests , thus providing shelter from a barrage of predicted, re-occurring hotel failures and sub-standard amenities.

This was put to action as we witnessed a disgruntled and yet concerned British guest going to great lengths explaining in simple,exaggerated, plain English that his refrigerator in his room was, and I quote, ";suspicious"; and nearing ";melt down point"; the mains plug morphing into something a cross between melted Guerre cheese and fried stag beetle..

Having said all that, check in was painless and efficient, the hi-tech plastic room card was explained in words of one syllable and the elevator was pointed out to us on our departure from reception. Gone now are the days of a huge slab of nougat on which swung a shiny brass key . Now to fit snugly in your wallet a credit card style swipe card to get you into your room. But sadly the hi tech adventure stops there.

Room 309 . Reminded me of my first School holiday to Calais. This time without creeping from one room to another for late night tuck and tiffin. No, this room flaunted with out ant pretense late 60 deco throughout. Although clean, there remained the throwbacks of a 1950's furniture auction room feel about the place. Dark wooden furniture, tiled floor of course, white walls and ";on the cusp of modern"; curtains. No Corby trouser press or tea and coffee making kit, but there was a telly, tuned in to receive programs from Algezera and RIA to canal Plus and News 24.

The beds were hard, (not to my wife's liking) and on closer inspection I identified a chunk of chip board under the mattress presumably to extend the life of the bed by a further 10 years.

The En-suite was surprisingly good. Although a little cramped due to the regulatory inclusion of a bidet! (what are they there for anyway?) Well I'm glad you asked me that. In good old days when you went on holiday and nobody spoke English, an omlette was foreign food and donkeys were the standard mode of transport in Malaga, the state of the country's sewage system was that there wasn't one. Anything that would block the toilet usually did including unfortunately loo roll.This being the case, when you did number two's the loo paper went in a basket near the lavatory ant then you washed your bum. But we don't seem to bother with that any more, so these useless piles of ceramic bathroom junk are just cluttering up the already crowded smallest room.

Anyway, The Shower resembled more of a dribble than a sandblaster! And surprisingly, the 1980's hair drier roared into action on demand. The towels were in abundance and fluffy en-suite.
To be fair, although our room was in need of a hefty refurb, it was clean and tidy with air-con so......mustn't grumble.

They have apparently started to refurb some of the other bedrooms, I did actually poke my nose into one on the way to breakfast and indeed, a splash of paint, new, if not just re-painted and creatively recycled furniture modern fixtures and fittings etc .So it seems ";pot luck"; if you get an old one.

The Hotel came with it's own little old lady. Apparently sent here by here son who was off to Scotland, no didn't make sense to me either. She didn't want to be here. We bought her one drink and that was it , from then on we had a friend for life.Clinging like a faithful Labrador. Gooey eyed and everything. The one thing I shouldn't have done when the woman in question was ill, was to 'install' my wife in the bar, then leave her for an hour while I chatted happily to Mrs P. This to my amazement, didn't go down too well that, on our last night and all!!. Especially as the bar became over run with mini football maniacs of about 12 years of age who had just won the cup!!

So what is the Vasco Da Gama's strong point? It certainly isn't food (in my opinion). I have to say, that Breakfast is slightly more appealing than dinner in this establishment. Along with the obligatory rice crispies and corn flakes, a gnarled old Portuguese woman, patiently fries, poaches, and probably hatches eggs for you, than you can help yourself to the freshly prepared scrambled egg from 3.00am that morning and weird bacon with little meat and afloat in its own fat. Charming.

It also seems that the various elements of cutlery are positioned at strategic parts of the restaurant (and I use that term loosely), so several trips have to be made to and from your seat collecting iron mongery. Having done all this of course.........you food has gone cold. ..Hey ho!

Dinner is pretty much the same affair with the addition of wine. It's quite easy to create a bit of a rumpus by waltzing in with a bottle of Mateus from the bar upstairs. Waiters would look puzzled as to where this bottle was conjured up from and whats more, who has been serving wine in another waiter's domain. So we found ourselves being gently interrogated by the head waiter. But when we declared that we had bought it from the bar upstairs, smiles were restored and all was well again in the restaurant.

So just one final word on the food then. Really nothing special, Anything tinned was swimming in its own generous juices, underwater carrots and broccoli a specialty, watery boiled potatoes and green beans, nuked into submission were always evident. Meat was presented in various guises. Tarted up as a Traditional Portuguese dish. But I'm sorry. A Campbells meat ball will always be a Campbells meat ball. Oh and by the way, the same little old Portuguese woman is there, this time frying fresh, minute steak in 3 minutes and pork chops, so there was freshly cooked meat if you dared!

There is however a good selection of salad and fishy bits to fashion an acceptable Hors d' ourves.
If you fancied a sweet, then a selection of flans usually manifested themselves on the central plinth.

So what is the holtels strongpiont? It has to be the beach. Being the first Large hotel built in Monte Gordo it does boast the best position. So if you exit the hotel by the rear entrance and stroll towards the sea for about 100 yds, you will come to your very own private beach.

The hotel's territory is marked out by a series of 3 sided canvass windbreaks. For the princely sum of 8 euros , a bronzed Adonis with spray-on swimming trunks would escort you to your selected windbreak, lay out your sun beds and plant an umbrella in the sand. I've no doubt for an extra 10 euros we would rub sun cream into your very white, British form. Your View of the sand and sea is without exception, second to none. Clean, safe and relatively quiet.
If you are a bit peckish and in need of some light refreshment, then the hotel's own snack bar is directly behind you. Beer coffee, light snacks ice cream etc, etc. ooh! And a little old crinkled portuguese woman grilling sardines into submission on a barbie at the back of the bins!. Top drawer!

Back to the hotel's lavish aminites. The Bar is probably the best area in the hotel to unwind. Two seater leather settees are in abundance, soft lighting and comforting atmosphere welcome you to this chilled out Bar area. A good stock of beer, wines and spirits adorn the shelves. The ambience, however is";upped"; every night by the obligatory entertainment. The ";turns"; varied from a Jazz trio to the great Marvello and his ";cooing diner jacket"; (so that's where the doves came from). All the acts received rapturous applause from my fellow in-mates. All in all............... not bad!

There is a quiet reading room for those who crave total audio isolation, but it did resemble a scene from ";cocoon"; or on one or more occasions.
I'll gloss over the crazy golf course in the garden and ";killer darts"; in the bar area, but I do think the pool area is worth a mention. The pool is rather sheltered. High walls ensure hurricane Herbert doesn't get a look-in, but the sun kisses 90% of the pool side are during the day!.
We stayed at the Vasco Da Gama in the first week of April, so as you can imagine you'd have to pick your way past the icebergs in the pool to do a few lengths!
So to Sum up then.
Overall marks out of 10....................6
Quality of the food...3
entertainment.........7
Room..............2 (although bathroom 6)
Bar...................8
Staff.................5
Beach................10

Final tip.
If Boooking this hotel, 5th floor sea view, BandB basis (eat out) hire a car.

Take the Vasco da Gama for what it is. Great Position, a little tired around the edges, but a good holiday all the same..

We have just returned from a fortnight in the Vasco and all in all had a lovely holiday. Cosmos were fine and Val their local rep was helpful and easy to get hold of.

Hotel
The hotel is right on the wide sandy beach - a sea view is a must and worth the extra as if you are on the road side it is quite busy and will get noisy. The rooms are spacious which was a pleasant surprise as we were expecting to be stuck in one room,the kids had their own area with sliding doors.Although we did not use it there is a kids club which is run by multi-lingual staff and a few English children attended while we were there and were well catered for.The furniture in the rooms is a bit shabby but could be worse and the maid service was excellent. The hotel has newly fitted remote control air-conditioning which was brilliant and essential.We were on bed and breakfast and found a good selection of fruit,cereal,toast,breads,hams,cheeses etc every day although if you are a fan of the full english you may be disappointed - scrambled egg and continental style sausages are as good as it gets although we found the food good and a refreshing change to the usual 'gutbuster' offerings! The pool a bit 'fresh' on some days but is not too busy and getting a sunbed was never a problem - the beach however is a nightmare and gets very crowded which was one of our main disappointments.

Resort
Monte Gordo has lots of restaurants to choose from, we would recommend Honorato's for their delicious pizzas and pasta and the China Palace on the pedestrian area, the food is brilliant - better than the Chinese at home - Jopels on the beach is also worth trying for some typical Algarvian dishes.
This resort does not have many English visitors but this wasn't a problem for us, you will come across lots of Germans,Dutch and Portugese holiday makers.

Overall we had a good time the hotel has tennis (play in the evening - it is just too hot during the day), and try the mini golf - just for the impossibility of it - it is in need of a little restoration! The evenings do get busy in this town but the beach is virtually empty by around 8.00pm so this is a lovely time for a stroll. If you like the usual British resorts Monte Gordo is not for you and it is not particularly pretty but we managed to have a good time. One last thing if you can visit Seville it is lovely - but be warned - very hot in the summer months.

We found this hotel to be superbly situated right on the beach. As we went in December most guests were pensioners but we didn't mind this (two of our party were also pensioners), as we wanted a quiet Christmas holiday. The rooms were large and clean. Towels were chaged everyday. We had a problem with our bathroom light bu tis was resolved quickly.

The food was reasonable. I think if we had stayed more than a week we would have ventured out to a restaurant. The table wine was good and reasonably priced. We also liked the lounge bar. We found all the staff friendly nad helpfull and they always made a fuss of our young daughter. We used the train to go to Tavira which I would recommend. We also booked a coach trip with Paradise tours to Seville. Seville was good but Paradise tours use the mini bus type coach, not full size, so it was a bit of a squeeze. This place is ideal for people wanting a relaxing hoilday with nearby nature reserves or you could go to Seville if you prefer cities.

I would recoomen this hotels to retired people or coules with young families. I thisnk families with teenagers would find it a bit too quiet in this hotel and the although the resort is quite large it does not seem to cater for a young singles/teenage market-let them go to Albuferia instead.

We went to the resort for a complete rest and after reading the resort reviews we thought we had picked the right place. We were not disappointed.

The hotel/resort is on the beach,literally. The sand is golden and spotlessly clean. There are lots of beach bars that serve food as well as drinks, the coffee is superb, they are well worth a visit.

When we arrived at the hotel at 1200hrs, we were told our rooms would not be ready til 1400hrs, which is their checking in time. Prior warning by our rep would have been appreciated, but the hotel is so near the bars and town it wasn't far to find a drink and a bite to eat. When we got to our room we found it spotlessly clean,as was the hotel generally. The daily room service maintained this standard all week.

We found everybody at the hotel to be friendly. The staff were a little reserved at first but with a little effort we found them very helpful.We were very pleased with the food there was loads of it and choice. A lot of local and fish dishes were available. Your welcome to join in with the other tour groups activities. Les, the First Choice rep is great,a mine of useful information and cheesey jokes. His town ramble is well worth the time, he will show you the best resturants and cafes and which cash machines to use.

There are some really good trips to do. We went to Gibraltar and Seville. We booked these in a tour shop, in the town as it is cheaper than the rep. Seville was fantastic especially the Jewish Quarter. The Tour guides have loads of information and are really helpful. We also went to Faro on the train ( 7 euro return). Get a taxi from the hotel to Villa Real, about 3.5 euro. The train goes through a nature reserve. You can also go to a small Spanish town across the river, on the ferry from Villa Real which was good for pressie shopping, a very nice morning out.

If you want total peace and quiet, this resort and hotel is ideal. If you want even a remote hint of a night life, go somewhere else.

BEWARE!!! On return to Faro airport the check in staff must be on commision for over weight luggage. Even hand luggage was being checked and people were fined about 6 euro per kilo.

The Vasco da Gama is situated a mere 4km from the Spanish border and 40km from the bustling and ever depressing Faro Airport.

So what is wrong with the hotel?? In short the thing that stands out head and shoulders above any other complaint is its lack of commitment to its guests in fulfilling any of the basic requirements a holidaymaker expects! The reception staff are very rude, abrupt, incapable of answering guests queries and do their best to make you feel as if you've been given a bed for the night out of pity rather than due to the fact you've actually paid for it!

The buffet style food is bland, repetitive, dull, essentially uninspiring and usually cold! Buffet area staff seem incapable of laying a table up for its guests upon their arrival to the buffet hall or to take an order for a drink. Instead you are expected to sit around like lemons waiting to get noticed, or to set up your tables yourselves - however, the second you find yourself finishing off a course, the plate is whipped away from you. On more than 3 occasions this occurred leaving me not only frustrated but also suffering from indigestion. The weekly menu rarely changes during the week and unless you are a fan of chips, undercooked fatty meat or enjoy choking on the bones that are frequently left amongst the food then you may find yourself going hungry. A 3-course meal is offered although the choice of food is minimal and ready amounts of warm, hot food seem frequently limited. The desserts are non existent and unless your prepared to queue from 6.30pm (amazingly many do, and the sight is like watching a WWII rations queue!!) then you have no hope of actually getting much other than the 100 portions of the same fatty looking dessert that seemed to sit there all week looking unloved or ice cream!! Admittedly this ice cream was rather delicious, but a choice would have been appreciated.

The poolside bar food is even worse and for the princely sum of 5 euros you can purchase a BLT that has the smallest portion of bacon ive ever seen, not only was this bit of bacon full of bone which nearly broke my tooth but it subsequently gave me food poisoning!!

The week I had the pleasure of staying here the freezing cold pool (no heaters here!) was out of action while the plants 2 metres away were seemingly being re-potted. Again in fairness a free 1.50-euro drink was offered with our meal in the evening, by now the excitement of the hotels generosity was getting too much!

Entertainment was non-existent and embarrassing poor. The week consisted of 2 appearances of a Manuel type performer who accordion was to bless us for an hour, a yawn breaking piano player who sang nothing more modern than Chris de Burgh! A frankly shocking magician whose inability to grab a pigeon from his inside pocket discreetly was another highlight and were it not for the 25% discount between 8-9pm and chance to meet the hotels ONLY polite staff (the bar staff!) we would have avoided like the plague.

The rooms were extremely basic in style, beds were uncomfy, pillows were as thin as After Eight mints and the sea view requested magically turned into a noisy main road view that seemed to pick up every noise made till 6am daily. Air conditioning broke twice in a week, plugs suddenly stopped working, and TV remote died. Although most of this was fixed the remote stayed out of order for the majority of the week - you really cant beat having to get out of bed onto the cold tiled floor to turn the TV off at night - Lest us not forget why we are actually watching telly in the first place (because the hotel entertainment is so poor!)

It may sound like ive been harsh to this hotel but I can assure you that if you're 40 or younger and are planning to visit this hotel then please, please do yourself a favour and give it a miss. It is by far the worst hotel I, or my partner have ever stayed in, in every level of its service - Everything seemed a hassle, and effort from getting a safe key, ordering of breakfast for the early flight return, paying for drinks daily in the buffet room rather than allowing the bill to build up throughout the week, to asking for problems with rooms to be rectified. I would suggest that the Vasco ad Gama takes a visit to ANY of its local competitors where nothing seemed to be too much trouble, whether that be allowing us the use of their indoor pool, the welcome to their bar to sample their excellent DAILY entertainment or the general cleanliness of the place to see how a hotel should be run and how far apart these hotels are from each other.

The sad reality of it all though is that the Hotel Vasco da Gama is essentially a nice hotel, ok its a bit old fashioned in style, but beautifully rustic and dressed out in oakwood decor and loungy effect, but that's not always a bad thing and should appeal to many people, its just the basic bread and butter essentials that the hotel seems to fall flat on its face at! 3 Star hotel this isn't-2 Star maybe??

When we arrived at the Vasco Da Gama it was like entering an old peoples home. We had to wait for over 2 hours for our room to be ready, in this time we were not even offered a drink. The reception staff are very rude, when waiting to speak to them you would only get a very abrupt YES.

The evening meals could only be decribed as bland with everything tasty the same, that includes fish, meat and veg, so we would recommend eating out.This is a hosted hotel, but our host was noticable by his absence,the other tour companies hosts were there running afternoon tea with a fun quiz, the only time we saw ours was at the welcoming meeting and on the coach back to the airport.

The only thing we can say is if you are going take a trip the Seville it is well worth it.