Colina da Lapa

Great villas, sleeps 9 comfortably, great pool and outdoor space. Pool well maintained and villa very clean, has everything you need. The jacuzzi was brilliant and lights at night were great. Did have so noisy neighbours thou, something they need to be more strict about.

Leaveing to day. After 10 days stay. Apparment 15 was fab big very clan. Staff amazing. As it was January it was very quite. But we loved it. Weather was great up till this morning rain came in. Didnt have a car but taxi cheap. Hopeing to be back really soon.

I tend to write more positive reviews than negative ones, unfortunately this is not one of them, but it is fair and balanced. There are many positives to take from our stay but the poor response to a problem we encountered has resulted in a lower than expected rating. After all, problems do happen, that's a fact - what sets an organisation apart is how they deal with those problems when they happen - and in this regard Colina failed quite miserably. Colina Da Lapa has a good range of villas, from apartments to 3 and 4 bedroom villas. Villas come with private pool and four of the larger 4 bedroom villas also have a hot tub/jacuzzi. We decied that as we were travelling in November that the pool may be on the cool side, so to opt for and pay the extra for a villa with hot tub. How disappointing it was then that the hot tub was a "tepid tub" - in other words, it reached a maximum temperature of 26 degrees and would not go beyond. We of course reported this (four times) and maintenance engineers came out twice but were unable to fix it during our 4 night stay and we did not have the opportunity to experience it at all. The written response from the Director/Manager was that, to quote: "the water was at the limit of its temperature" - this I find difficult to believe given the ambient air temperature was low 20's and the fact the maintenance engineer said to expect temperature of 37 degrees (any respectable hot tub will heat to 40 deg). I was not offered any refund or compesation despite the fact I would have paid far less had we chosen a villa withou hot tub (which is in effect what we ended up with). A refund of the difference would be the very minimum one would consider a respectable response. The other problem we had, which I would not normally have mentioned, but will do because it added to our disappointment, was that on arrival to our first villa, we found the pool to be dirty and green with algae - see pictures. We immediatly reported this and had to wait while another villa was prepared in earnest (yes, the one with the faulty hot tub). Not a third world problem admittedly, but the lack of duty and care shown by allocating this first property with the pool in that condition is well below par. Other than that I can't really fault the place - spacious, clean, in need of a lick of paint here and there, but in the main (issues above aside) I would have been singing its praises. Avoid plot 411 if you want a warm or warmish hot-tub - and also there's a lot of road noise as there is little screening. Such a shame that the customer service and response to the hot tub fail has resulted in a negative experience, such a shame because as we have family living nearby we were looking for somewhere to stay regularly.