Carvoeiro Hotels from $98

We had a very enjoyable and relaxing week here. The hotel grounds are lovely with trees, birds and frogs and lots of different places to settle. Table tennis, badminton, a nice pool and very obliging staff. Downsides: restaurant a bit limited and pricy, and nowhere much to walk to locally - except the next door restaurant, which we actually preferred. Overall very good, we liked it.

I've stayed here before and booked the same offer as a prior visit of a villa with a private pool and breakfast included. This works well for me as it allows me to keep the villa as a base of operations whilst popping out to various family friendly attractions and beaches all on a full morning stomach. Rooms are spacious each with en-suite facilities, all of the air-con worked and the shutters are all in good order. The decoration is spartan. The kitchen facilities are fair and are stocked enough to allow for home cooking with plenty of decent sized supermarkets around. Downside is no BBQ available for the garden and the lack of coffee making facilities in the kitchen but to remedy I just bought a cafetiere in town and our moods were certainly lifted. To be fair I did prefer the villa from my previous stay to this one, solely I think because there was a pond behind the garden filled with horny frogs keeping me awake at night in my incredibly hard bed which was a shame. Once I got used to it though it was more annoying than anything else. I found the restaurant offered a wide range of breakfast options on a buffet all quite tasty, again though they are let down by offering coffee from a machine which added UHT milk. To me that is a sin but others may tolerate or quite like this.They do offer an all inclusive option which I imagine would be fairly priced and of decent quality but personally this doesn't work for me as I do not like being tied to an area whilst holidaying.