I genuinely don’t know where to begin with this place, but as we’ve gone from quite angry, to now finding the whole episode amusing, here feels like a good place as I am flying home. Before I begin, don’t book this place, unless you are a disappointment junkie. There were some positives, however, so I’ll be fair and begin there. The house keepers are lovely, very pleasant and get on with things well. Diogo (porter) is very helpful and is one of only a few that wants to be there, also Debrah/Deborah (spelling?) who is always present at breakfast is welcoming beacon of light that warmly receives you into the breakfast area and is incredibly attentive. But for the hotel, the positives sort of end there. Out of the hotel, down the cliff face, the rock pools are excellent for spotting fish, crabs and other marine life. We spent most afternoons down there to avoid the hotel after our adventures in the hire car. When we checked in, I had previously requested a sea view room with my agent and upon receiving the booking information, I should have been a mind reader and known this hotel specifies a sea view room but does not specify anything else. I wasn’t in that operational meeting when they discussed terminology, so sadly I had no way of understanding. But I’m okay with an administrative error, it happens. However, what should not happen when you are attempting to get to the bottom of why the robots say no, is the duty manager telling your wife that she wants something for free when actually she’s just asking for some customer service and understanding from what is apparently a five star hotel. Self awarded or from 1978, I don’t know. But it took an awfully long time to get the information that the sea view rooms were full, and after we had asked the hotel to call other 5* hotels for their availability, at our expense, sadly they were full. But sure we wanted something for free. Make it make sense. This is our fourth 5* trip in 14 months but this one feels like fraud. It cannot be 5* for many reasons, but chargeable coffee in the room is definitely up there. 0.75c for a coffee pod and no fresh milk is incredible, it is utterly wild to think a very basic item is chargeable. For context, just over a week earlier at our stay in Madeira, we entered our room to a bottle of champagne on ice and strawberries dipped in chocolate. An opposite welcome of cataclysmic proportions. You do get free tea, however, but I’m probably the only British person that doesn’t drink it. There are no face cloths, no working plug in the sink, the bed for our son was a half length bed and he’s a 135cm tall six year old, only two coat hangers between the three of us and when you ask for more; we received three. Also, pubic hair in the bath and unclean drinking glasses in the the room added to what we now lovingly call this hotel ‘Faulty Do Towers’. If you venture to the pool, make sure your insurance covers ankle breaks on the uneven brickwork, be aware that there are no cushions on the hard plastic sun loungers and don’t expect any waiter/waitress service. That was all day one/intro stuff and as our expectations hit the floor, Pedras do Mar managed to outdo itself into day two. It stepped up a notch with the early emergence of a cockroach nest on the balcony, having already removed one from the room, so not only did we have a glorious mountain/bin view, the hotel added a hint of island wild life as a treat. We appear to have avoided cholera though which is excellent. The reception staff will make you feel like their shortcomings are your fault and this is why we had to move to finding everything amusing. On check out day, we’d been down to the rock pools to see the local intelligent life, handed the hire car key back and were getting ready to vacate our sty. I mean stay. This next bit is important; you again have to be a mind reader and know the check out time. We also weren’t told where breakfast was or the times, but thankfully that is fairly obvious with the signs we noticed when at the dubiously sulphur smelling spa late on during our first afternoon. Minor issues. We received a call to the room around 11:01 from one of the reception staff who began berating my wife, I quote ‘You will listen to me..’ when trying to assert some sort of authority over the check out time. I took the phone and was then told there is ‘Information in the desk of the room you have inspected.’ Cockroaches, dirty glasses, chipped mugs, beds sized for a Borrower, pubes and dust tend to present themselves, there was no sign of a desk though. Perhaps that was in the room we had originally requested. The language was again quite bizarre and as per the common theme, it was all our fault that we didn’t know. I could go on but will leave some surprises just in case you are a daredevil and book this shed. It really is a terrible hotel that is clearly on the decline and in need of some urgent investment; first and foremost in staff training and then in aesthetic’s.…