Review of Algarve Casino Hotel 5*

We stayed at the Hotel Algarve Casino for 7 days in August of 2017. It was a very nice hotel. I went with my mother, grandmother, and cousin. Originally, we had been booked two rooms (grandmother and cousin in one, mother and me in t'other), however they did not have a sea view so we requested to change. The people at reception did try their best to give us both a sea view, and also offered us the chance to have two rooms next to one another, but we declined, seeing as our new rooms would have required my grandmother to have walked down two staircases, not lift-accessible (and to the other side of the hotel, quite far away). So it was decided that they would give us both a sea view, but my grandmother and cousin would stay in the main part of the hotel whereas we would stay in the non-lift-accessible part on the other side of the hotel. Although the rooms were a bit old-fashioned, and the air-con loud, the beds in our room were quite comfortable and our balcony had two sun-loungers on it (although my grandmother told me that in her room, the beds were harder, she had no sunbeds on her balcony, and there was, on occasion, the stench of sewerage, which we suspected was being dumped into the ocean the hotel overlooked). On the first night in the hotel, we ate in the hotel restaurant (hint: don't go there! ) on a night when a performance was happening (the tables in the tiered restaurant overlooked a stage). We got a pretty good view. I'm surprised they even allowed my 10-year-old cousin into the restaurant, seeing as the show featured women wearing very thin bikinis and dancing to songs such as "Despacito, " among other overly well-known songs. The two men dancers who appeared onstage were terrible at dancing, and even dabbed a few times, as if to stress the point even more that they truly cannot dance (to be honest, nobody on that stage could dance that well). We sat out on the terrace a few times during our trip at the hotel, which offered brilliant views of the pool, the beach, and the ocean, especially at night. They serve lunch and drinks there (things like steak sandwiches, pizza, hot dogs, etc, and any drink you can find in a bar, served with regular salted nuts). At night, after coming back to the hotel from going somewhere else to eat (after learning our lesson from the first night), we found nothing nicer than sitting out on the terrace (the waiter who served us at night was very nice and enjoyed talking to us), and drinking a hot chocolate (a very good hot chocolate at that). The pool is, quite literally, just warm, chemically treated sea water (it still has the salt in it), although it was fine for a quick swim. There were always sun-loungers available (no Germans to throw their towels on them! ), and some sun-loungers offered great views of the coast, seeing as the pool area was perched just over the cliff that separated the beach from the rest of the land (beach was fine, although a bit crowded). Breakfast was nothing special, and consisted of a few hot foods (bacon, scrambled egg, mushrooms, etc. ), along with cereals, juices, cold cuts, fruit, and assorted bread and pastries with various accompanying jams, marmalade, and honey (with one of those conveyor belt toaster things, of course). Despite a good selection, they had considerable difficulty in making my grandmother some porridge (I suspect they didn't know what is was), but in the end they succeeded in that task. Overall, despite some problems, this hotel looked far better than any of the other hotels nearby, and I'd come here again if I ever visited this part of Portugal in the future. Very good!