L'AND Vineyards

Wanted to love this place. Upon arrival we were completely underwhelmed. Once taken to our room, the floor was dirty, the rug not vacuumed, the sofa and chair were left like someone just got out of them. And then……. We looked in the shower! Mold and filth. There were bugs in the room. One of the restaurants was closed and the other was booked to capacity. Only option was room service. My husband sat on a chair to have dinner and it broke. This is a self proclaimed 5 star hotel. It should be a 2! We arrived late after a day of driving. Had to stay one of the 3 nights we had booked and got out of it. In our opinion this hotel is a self proclaimed 5 star. So, so wrong. If your expectations are low, you will be ok.

Our second visit to L'AND and again we had a wonderful time, the suites are very generously sized and if you book the Sky View Suites they are very close to the main building. The restaurant is wonderful (though they changed head chef shortly after our departure) and it is still set in a wonderful part of the world. There were a couple of slight criticisms that we had, the first is that breakfast on Sunday morning was very busy with lots of people coming and going, during the week it is a wonderfuly relaxing experience and I do wonder how well the central facilities will cope as there are more and more Villas being built. The other criticism is one that we experienced last year, the bar staff do not seem very well trained - they are very polite and courteous, but I would expect a hotel anywhere in PT to know how to make a Part Tonic.

We booked the sky suite for 2 nights and arrived at 15 Feb around 12 or 13hrs. Our suite was not ready yet and they immediately offered us a coffee or tea in their restaurant which was really nice. The restaurant has a lovely view. They said they would whatsapp us when the room was ready. Never happened, we had to check ourselves when 3pm (incheck time) had passed. Our sky suite was located close to the main building which was convenient and the terrace in front of the room offers quite some privacy for all suites. The suite itself was large with a living, a bedroom, large bathroom, outdoor plungepool (you can fill it with hot water but it takes a long time as it is a big bathtub) and a firepit on the terrace in front of the room. There was a small bottle of wine waiting for us, which is a nice gesture. Room is nice but you can see it has been around several years. There were also a few things not working like the music box did not switch on, the light at the coffee bar was broken and since it was in corner in a dark wood cupboard, it was very dark. When I mentioned it the next day, the immediately made sure it was fixed, the light, not the music installation. All sliding doors were mega heavy and very hard to open but once open, very nice. Portugal had had bad weather but we had rather nice sunny weather: the hotel made sure the chairs on our terrace had dry cushions every day as it rained overnight. We did ask them to lite the firepit the 2nd night. They forgot.... we had to phone them to remind them. However, when alight it quickly died again as the wood was all to wet There is a lovely walk around the property where you pass through all the villas which have been built on the property as well. We did a wine tasting was was really great - the wines were tailored to each of us and we got to taste some interesting wines and heard a lot of interesting facts about Portuguese wines The first night we had dinner at Mapa, their restaurant. We just had the wine tasting so had no more wine and just ordered a main and dessert, but the food was really good. Not surprised they now have a Michelin star. The only thing is that the space felt a bit empty at night - white tables, very small flower, large windows but dark outside. Interesting with a lot of light features on the ceiling. But it missed a bit of cosiness for my liking Breakfast is served in the same space and during the day it feels better. Breakfast was amazing by the way. Such nice products and so fresh. Since it was February we used the indoor pool which is most of the day adult only but when we arrived the 1st evening during the adult only hours, there were people with a child playing in the pool so it was quite noisy. Next day it was nice and quiet with lovely relax loungers with a view to the garden. All in all a nice stay