Água Hotels Mondim de Basto

Jen d6 years ago

Arrived around 14h. Realized check in was only at 15h so I went in to ask if it was okay to come early, they said no problem, I asked if there was a possibility of having a room close to the pool since that was our primary destination. (while discussing this with the receptionist I was already starting to feel my fate because of how freezing the lobby was. I was wearing my winter jacket and it felt almost as cold inside as it was outside...) the receptionist said the room was already assigned and that all the rooms in the same building as the pool were under construction. I gathered my family and all our bags and headed to the room.... The lady and the front desk indicated that we had to cross an enclosed glass walled bridge to get to the elevator (it was freezing!!!). As I get to the elevator im already confused because our room is on floor 2 and this elevator goes to floors 3,4,5.... HUH? I go back into the reception and ask what's going on.... So I have to take the elevator to floor 3, and then go through another hallway, none of which is indicated, find another elevator that will take me to floors 1 & 2.... What the hell. Find our room. Its small. Whatever. Its 2 single beds, made separately, pushed together. I call the front desk to ask why we didn't have a double bed, and she advises me that the rooms with double beds are suites and are 30euros more... The rooms only cost 42 per night initially, so the "upgrade" didn't seem worth it... I said okay, we'll keep our room. Took a quick look the room (bathroom smelled like cigarette smoke and there was a burn hole on one of the pillowcases) and decided to go check out the pool facilities and then return to the room to gather our swim gear. We make it to the indoor pool area (in the same building as the reception)... It looks OK. Just a bit of a pain because of having to travel though all the buildings to get to it... ||||On the way back to our room I realize that we left the key in the room (because the electricity doesn't work unless you have the key in the slot in the room, and they only gave us one card even though the reservation was for 2+child). So after reaching the room and realizing that we didn't have the key and I had to walk yet again to the 1st building to request a new key. At that point, I pleaded with the front desk girl that my 2 year old daughter had just gotten over a cold and that it was a cold and long trek from the pool to our room. She once again told me that the rooms that were closer were those suite rooms seh had told me about... And there was a fee associated but that the rooms were an upgrade from the ones we were at. She was very kind and offered us this upgrade for free as a courtesy to my recovering from a cold daughter. ||||While it did make all the traveling within the hotel considerately shorter, there was no way to avoid having to cross the ice cold glass walled bridge, which was particularly annoying when returning from the hot pool area to return to our rooms.||||Now, the pool/spa area.... From what I had been told the hotel itself was 9 years old with some new additions that has just opened within the year. I couldn't tell much of a difference between the new parts and the old... The whole place looked like it could easily have been there for 20 years. Out doors there were 2 large pools, and a small pool. Indoors there were a gym, 1 "family pool" (31* temps were written on a dry erase board at the entrance but the temperatures of the pools was often quite different then what the actual temp was), 1 Jacuzzi, and in a separate room was an adults only swimming pool. I found it strange the indoor pools were both so shallow. The family one (the one meant for kids!) didn't even have the depth indicated!??! And the adult one was a shallow 1,1m and significantly warmer. We went to the pool 3 times during our 2 night stay. The Jacuzzi temp was about the same temperature as the adult pool (30*) so the following day a couple hours before we planned to use the pool I spoke to the employee at the front desk to ask them if the Jacuzzi was always so mild in temperature... They said they would speak to the maintenance and make sure it was hot today. When we finally made it back, 3-4 hours later we went to the pool and it was 28*?!?!?! MUCH COLDER then the adult pool). I went to reception to ask if maintenance had checked on the Jacuzzi because it was cold right now, and she told me that legally had to be 28*. I said that was disappointed because we had come to this hotel specifically because it was a "pool hotel" she retorted quickly that it was NOT a pool hotel, but rather a "SPA" hotel....||||I Found it rude how she responded and incorrect since no where in the hotel name does it say spa (although it is called AGUA HOTEL) and based on the spa treatments they offered (like 5-6 basic massage options).... It was NOT a spa. She told me that an employee wouldn't physically go there that they adjust the temp remotely. After waiting a while in the pool area and not seeing a change in temp, I went looking for someone else to help. Nearby there was a hotel bar, I spoke to the bartender about my situation and he at least seemed to try to help. We walked around trying to find pool/spa employee and although we couldn't find anyone, he made some calls to end someone down. At this point my daughter and husband had been making due with what was available and by the time I was done trying to "fix the problem" it was time for my daughter to get out of the pool. When we left the Jacuzzi temp had raised from 28 to 29. I didn't even bother to tell reception anything else for the rest of my visit. ||||On the final day we were there, before check out, we went for a last swim. The Jacuzzi was at 31* even though the temperature on the sign on the wall said "35,8*" aside from the ridiculous temperatures throughout the hotel in the water, in the hallways, the rooms that you can't control without constantly calling the front desk to reset the heat for you... This place was leaking and cracking and degradation everywhere. The changing rooms/showers for the pools looked like like - high school lockers, dirty, un-kept, stalls out of order, lockers out of order, the showers were all dirty and broken. The sauna was all falling apart. The safety barrier around the heating element was just hanging, wood on the benches were warped and splintered, and one corner of the benches were disintegrating (see photos)... and the turkish bath was missing a ton of the tiles that covered the benches... The hallway ceilings dripped water when it rained. Water came in between the seams of windows in the pool rooms. Doors that were seriously difficult to open.... For a hotel that is significantly younger then 10 years old... A hotel that is supposedly 4STARS... Why aren't these basic repairs attended to?||||Other things worth mentioning... Our room had ants the whole time we were there. Seemed to be coming "through the woodwork" in the bathroom.||Breakfast was actually pretty nice and the host was kind to allow me to bring food to my room for my family that was still sleeping, only problem was the coffee and juice. Both instant powdered types... Absolutely horrible. ||Also the sliding doors in the hotel rooms let a lot of moisture in... Since the rooms didn't have dressers for us to organize our clothes, I neatly piled our clothes on the floor (before I noticed there were ants everywhere) and when we woke up, any clothes that were remotely close to the outside doors were SOAKING WET.||||The hotel room bathroom has a huge window, which I already didn't like the fact that it didn't have a curtain or shades, so while I or my husband was showering, if my daughter went outside, she could see everything. And worse was the morning because although the room has blackout curtains that completely block the light into the room, the bathroom door is transparent/frosted which allows all the light in anyway, and there is no way to block the light. Needless to say my daughter woke up much earlier then usual every day.||The towel rack in the bathroom if you hung the towels up, when you pulled them off, often the metal bars would fall out of their holes and would make a terribly loud noise.