Rio Do Prado

TL;DR: Not worth the fortune you're charged! Maybe worth €100. Not more. Design. Literally the only thing this hotel has to offer. Well that and the cheesecake at the restaurant. But is that worth €200+/night and ~€65/dinner/person/? Absolutely freaking not. This is not a bad hotel, mind you (even as you read my review), it's just that the price is not justified. At all. Rooms: very nice design. Period. The bathtub had hairs inside (black hairs on black bottom...). No separate shampoo (let alone conditioner) and shower gel (mind you: this is a €200+ room). Hand soap is provided but no place where to put it... Wooden floors with splinters mean you can't walk barefoot. A lot of echo means you can't go number two in the middle of the night without your other half hearing you passing gas in their sleep. In the morning, the shade for the opening in the ceiling still lets sunshine through. Restaurant (dinner): again: design and the cheesecake at the end. We paid €65 each for a tasting menu full of things that are cheap to make (like bread and cheese or ovos rotos, aka, chips with fried eggs and farinheira). I mean they were good but defo not worth €65. We ordered a caipirinha which was served over ice cubes (as opposed to with crushed ice), which made it taste extremely strong. Terrible. We also ordered two Nordés gins (€13? each) and the lady serving us said that as a standard they were served with bay leaves but that they could do with basil leaves instead. Intrigued, we accepted the bay leaves suggestion. They came both with basil. It wasn't bad, but I mean what a farce of a service is this?! (again: for the price we paid). Restaurant (breakfast): to the same standard you'd get in a 3+/4-star / €100(!) a night hotel. Even then, maybe not because the kiwis were super acidic and the watermelon juice tasted sour (as if the uneaten watermelon from the day before was used to make the next day's breakfast juice; just speculating but I wouldn't exactly put it past them). Pool area: Full of annoying flies! Only bearable if you're in the pool. As soon as you step outside and lay down, a mini swarm of 13-14 flies (yes, we let them land on us and counted) comes to have some fun at your expense as you twitch like a fish out of the water trying to swat them away.

Walking bare foot in hotel room is risky because of wooden floor that has some wooden splinters and cracks. Hotel room does not have any natural ventilation, eg no windows to open during the night. But be careful mosquitos reported by other guest. Pool area is too small for all the guest, at least it lacks beds. Main Pool is pretty small.