Montebelo Vista Alegre Ílhavo Hotel

The service at this hotel (with the exception of the friendly gentleman who led us to our table at breakfast) exists on a sliding scale between indifferent to guests' existence and hugely inconvenienced by you. Not friendly at all and certainly not in keeping with the standards you might expect from a five star hotel. Rooms are very comfortable and stylishly laid out - this is the best thing about the place, without a doubt. For a hotel with so many rooms, there is only a very small pool. When we went for a swim in the late afternoon, there were a dozen people in the water and this made it quite impossible to swim at all. There were several people with their beach towels on the grass because there were so few loungers available. We went to the beach bar for a salad for lunch. The pleasant sounding rustic salad arrived in bowls so small as to be insufficient to feed the youngest of children. And this was not a case of it being small portions of haute cuisine, it was a few leaves of rocket, with some peeled apple and cubed chicken out of a packet. My wife's version was even worse than mine, with almost no chicken, mushrooms or asparagus. At €14 a pop, I felt this was ridiculous. The offering, in terms of drinks, was uninspired and akin to what you might expect from the most basic bar. The communal spaces were often in unfinished concrete, which was ugly. I think this hotel gets by purely by its association with the Vista Alegre name and its location. Disappointing.