Tavira Inn / Casa Do Rio

Greeted by the host wearing only skimpy beach shorts and flip flops. A lot of rules including reference to the noise made by my wife’s walking stick, which made her very reluctant to use it on the many steps. Host was very in your race and approached my wife and other females at the poolside, again wearing only beach shorts. He entered our room several times uninvited both when we were in and out and when challenged on this he said it was his house and he could go wherever he liked. After a ridiculous dispute over towels during which he shouted at us and was incredibly hostile, we decided to leave early. He refused to offer any kind of refund and withheld items we left behind in our haste to leave. A complaint has been made to booking.com

This is a peace of paradise ! It exceeded my expectations - the pictures do not do it justice. Its just perfect. I had a room with both pool view and river view. The garden area with pool is so peaceful I was so happy here. Just 5 minutes away are beautiful cafes and restaurants. The area looks like you are walking though history and still in 1800's its beautiful all the buildings restored so well. Sebastio has been such a good host and really helpful offering early check in and so friendly. The bed was very comfortable- the pillows too. I have only praise for this lovely place . I loved it so much i stayed another night. I will be back. If u want adult only peace and quiet in a beautiful area with great food this is the place to book. Thank you for having me Sam

I honestly do not understand how “Casa do Rio, Tavira Inn” gets these very good reviews, however, I have my suspicions. My husband and I stayed for 5 nights in September ’25. We couldn’t wait to get out of there and wished every day that we had spent the small additional charge for a proper hotel. Tavira Inn is not a hotel. The owner, Sebastiao, lives downstairs and rents out 3 or 4 bedrooms, while charging 4* hotel prices. There are no staff. There are no communal seating areas, no reception even. None of this is a problem necessarily, but let me tell you what you will experience here: The rooms are not cleaned or serviced in any way at all during your stay. You will be given a fresh set of (very old, thin and rough) towels after 5 days and you are told to leave your dirty towels outside your room that day. There is no shower gel, no shampoo, no conditioner, no shower caps. There are individually wrapped miniature soap bars in your bathroom which you can replenish yourself from a supply in the landing. Similarly, you need to replenish your toilet roll from a supply in the landing. There is no iron or ironing board. There is a small travel sized hairdryer, which is surprisingly powerful. There is no breakfast (despite one of the photos on the website), there is no tea/coffee making facilities. Nearest shop for buying water or anything else is a 10-minute walk away. There are no nearby cafes that open before 9am. The room is not clean – our feet and socks were dirty from the floor. I have a strong suspicion that the sheets were not freshly applied to the bed before our stay. They had a grubby feel. They were not changed at all during our 5 day stay, which is unacceptable given the high temperatures and therefore plenty of night-time sweating. There was no duvet (which is fine as the temperature was warm) – but instead there was an old, worn, unwashed blanket. There are two very thin and flat pillows on the double bed. Additional pillows were not available. The bathroom could do with a really good scrub. Once I noticed this, I realised how very dirty it actually was. The wall tiles beside the toilet were disgusting – not noticeable at a glance which is possibly why they don’t get cleaned, but really – not cleaning beside the toilet? Sebastiao seems to think that toilet cleaning consists of putting a blue tablet in to change the colour of the water. The shelf above the sink had years of grimy dust in the crevices and around the edges. I then tried not to look at anything else too closely. The shower cubicle has a shower curtain on it which tends to stick to your body during the shower. The shower itself is tiny – Sebastiao told us it is 75cm x 75cm which is probably accurate. The water in the shower is at a good pressure, but takes about a minute to heat up – yes, it is an old building so water delivery issues can be understandable, but the bathroom area seriously needs cleaning and upgrading. If you want to adjust the temperature of the water in the shower, it is very difficult, as it seems to switch instantly between really hot or very cool. The shower hose has a mind of its own, so it is difficult to direct the water and sometimes it just sprays on the wall rather than towards the floor. Sebastiao has several rules that he will tell you when you first arrive: • bring your rubbish down from your room daily to the bins outside and segregate it among the different bins for recycling purposes. • If you use the pool, hose down the whole surrounding area afterwards. • If you sit on any of the furniture around the pool, fix the cushion into a specific position afterwards. • No food in the pool area. • No glasses in the pool area. • No touching the glass of any of the doors or windows of the building. • Don’t put your glass on the bedside table without using a mat. For some reason Sebastiao took one of our drinking glasses from our bathroom and rolled it along the floor to demonstrate the noise that this makes. He then put the glass back on the shelf in the bathroom. Note comment above about the floor being really dirty. Sebastiao is charging a load of money for his rooms, but his rules and lack of cleaning/servicing mean that he actually does very little work. The noise of the train going over the bridge hourly from 6am is horrendous, but he is correct - it only lasts 5 to 10 seconds. Also, if you close the doors to the balcony, it muffles the sound somewhat, although if you are caught outside on the balcony when it goes over it is deafening and you feel like the whole bridge is going to come tumbling down. Be aware that your balcony is not necessarily private. Ours was the one upstairs on the first floor overlooking the pool – the separation between this balcony and the next-door balcony consisted of a narrow section of wall and then a rope hanging from this wall to the front wall of the balcony. Not proper separation at all. One morning I was sitting reading on our balcony and Sebastiao called up to me by name from beside the pool and tried to have a full conversation incorporating some creepy suggestive comments – had I known that this was likely to happen I would have been more covered up – a serious lack of respect for privacy and peaceful enjoyment of the area that we were paying for. Overall, we found the place dingy and uncomfortable – both physically and psychologically. Sure the building has character, but it is not clean, you have to service everything yourself, and you are being watched. I fully expect that Sebastiao will give a disgruntled and possibly aggressive response to this review, as I have seen he does to all negative reviews, however all I have said above is completely accurate.