Alto Fairways

We were playing golf so it was an ideal spot for us although we still had to drive round to the entrance 5 minutes away. The apartments are very stark and cold with no really homely look about them. We weren't in the apartment that often anyway, so that didn't matter much. The good points first, this was a one bedroom apartment with 2 shower/bathrooms. The showers were great, the rooms were big and the kitchen very modern but with no instructions for any of the gadgets. The microwave oven didn't work unless the kitchen light was on ! How are you supposed to work that one out, I've never heard of that before? None of the windows or sliding doors locks worked so we were advised to close the shutters when we went out as we were on the ground floor. This was a bit of a pain as we had to do that every time we left the flat. The curtains were see-thru so we had to close the shutters at night too in the bedroom. On the Saturday night we saw about 30 teenagers arriving to stay in the complex, which should not have been a problem, but they all went out on the town at 10pm and came back at 3/4am shouting and yelling at the top of their voices. We have never had this experience in a holiday complex before. We gave them a chance and thought, ''Oh it's just their first night.'' I'm afraid not they repeated the noise the next night too. We complained the next morning and the reception apologised and said that they were only there for 2 nights and they would be gone by dinner time. The swimming pool adjacent our block was quite nice although just square and boring. No bar and only 8 beds with no shades at all. This was supposed to be for about 30 apartments ! Alvor and the general area is fantastic and we looked at other potential apartments for future trips. There are hundreds and much better than this complex. Me advice is, ''Don't go near Alto Fairways unless you are desperate''

An expensive stay. No WiFi, only in reception. Check-in only after 4 p.m.? Yet the apartment is paid for. Check-Out is far too early 10 a.m.! TV programmes only in Portuguese, BBC News scrambled! Mattresses need to be replaced with ones that you dont have the springs digging in your back. Cleaning? Very questionable! Not enough really. Towels need to be changed every 2 days. No double beds! Kitchen toaster was reported as faulty, nothing done. Latest time to use the pools is 7 p.m., in summer is a bit early, but this is never checked as the childrens play area, noisy children (parents to blame) allowed to play until very late hours. The gardener began as early as 9 a.m. cutting the grass. Last time here...

We booked a last minute trip and got back from here today! Spent 7 nights here - about a 30-40min walk to the main 'strip' of town (we found a slightly shorter route off track the last day!!) Ideally, have a car as the pavements arent quite finished so it can be a bit of a hazard getting out at the top of the road near Big Reds Steakhouse with a pushchair but we managed it! We ended up doing a fair sized food shop to stock up on breakfast and lunch bits, stayed by the pool during the day and then when out early evening. The apartments are basic, but big! A great thing to have was the washing machine as we just did a little every day so that we didn't have any washing to get done when we got home! If there were any suggestions I could make; 1) Supply parasols by the pools - it was difficult with children to stay out for very long without shade 2) Put a small poolside snack bar on site to sell panini, wraps, toasties, icecreams, soft drinks and beer etc. It wouldn't have to be huge, but would be a huge draw to staying on site during the day! And there is definitely room for it to go by the kids pool! One thing we found odd; the cleaners were in daily, and if we were outside by the pool we would leave our doors and shutters open as we had a room overlooking the pool - this meant that rather than walking all the way around the building, we could just walk in through the patio area into the lounge. Whenever the cleaners were in, they would close and lock the shutters (even though my husband asked them not to, and he even made a point of walking past them to reopen the shutters, they did so again within a space of 5 minutes, 3 times!!) I would understand if we didn't have a direct view from the pool, but we did, and quite clearly had asked them to leave the shutters open and they just ignored our requests! That did make us wonder what they were up to when they were inside! Overall, it was a great find - just slightly too far out without a car to do the return walk up the hill again, but that being said, I would just factor in the cost of a daily taxi back next time!