Santa Clara-a-Velha Vacations from $1,137

Apartment 848, clean and spacious. What was a really nice touch arriving after 10pm was fresh bread, butter, jam and milk. Thank you! Wifi in apartment n restaurants. Close to the Tennis club but we choose to use our breakfast voucher in the Doce cafe which was a 1k walk, which was lovely but u can use the resort shuttle taxi. The 3 staff in Doce were brilliant each morning, Fantastic cocktails in beach club too, it was quiet in October but great music by DJ pool water is cool but refreshing! We enjoyed watching the tennis & Paddle and would definitely book if we were back. The beach is flawless and lovely to watch the golfers. Really nice wide spread resort, the hire car was handy when we decided to eat off site.

A live pianist at breakfast is nice to have but this one was very idiosyncratic, meandering vaguely around tunes in a bizarre and eventually tiring and annoying style. The worst outdoor feature is the towels which are old, not very large and extremely poor quality. Sunbed mattresses would be a great asset to improve the comfort as the pvc is taut and not fir for relaxation or dozing. Nightly entertainment is so sadly typical of the local generic singer or couple playing amateurishly and extremely loudly to generic backing tracks, and with poor diction let alone mispronunciation of lyrics, which together emphasise the artistes' mediocrity. This puts off many residents except those who have low musical tastes and high toleration levels. PLEASE don't employ those with backing tracks who can't perform on their own or who insist on far too loud volume which simply makes guests' conversation in the evenings impossible. Evening/bar managers urgently need to take this in hand. Food is excellent and staff helpful. A greater range of pillows other than memory foam would help and the air-conditioning needs finer adjustment. You need a car to get into the town restaurants, which are excellent and good value. Those arriving after 10 pm will get a very inadequate room service meal as well as losing a day's sunshine. Pool water is clean and the beach is great. With a little imagination this hotel could be a 5 star and has the location and staff to make it so. Shaded parking is a plus.

Beautiful pools

Having the golf cart service to take us down to the ocean and restaurants is the best!