The Host Portugal

Highly recommend this day trip - amazing houses and castles, and a lovely little town

Batalha Monastery was amazing, probably my favorite monastery we visited Nazare was warm and lovely, a fun little beach town And Obidos was really interesting. It was very crowded on the day we went, so avoid the Chocolate festival!

We had a lovely stay here. The staff was extremely friendly and did everything in their power to make us happy. We loved both the indoor and outdoor pool, as well as the location close to the beach. Another plus is their focus on sustainability: there are water purification stations on every floor and you can refill a glass decanter to your liking with water. The reason for my lower rating: All extras are extremely overpriced. There is a jacuzzi, but you have to pay 15€ PER PERSON and sign up in advance to use it. There is supposed to be someone near the spa to help with the process, but the desk was almost always unmanned, making the process and the price rather prohibitive to the enjoyment of the spa. Further, the food was very expensive for its quality. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, there was a large buffet you could use against a flat fee. Dinner was 36€ per person! This did not include beverages. The variety was good, but if you didn’t feel hungry enough to wolf down multiple courses, it was hardly worth the money. We ended up getting groceries from a nearby store instead. We would have liked to take advantage of the snack bar and the cocktail bar but were deterred by their prices as well. The building was also complicated to navigate: reception, on the fourth floor, was the connecting hub. Even though the restaurant and some rooms were both on the third floor, you couldn’t go directly from your room to the restaurant - you first had to go up a set of stairs / take the elevator to the fourth floor and then descend again. There was plenty of parking, but there were three entrances to two separate parking garages, and two out of the three entrances were always locked.

We had a great time here. We especially enjoyed the sky pool and the downstairs spa / gym area. The only minor negative thing I can say is that it felt a bit like a cruise ship - it is a large hotel, with many guests, and while for the most part you didn’t notice it so much, on our last morning there was a large number of people at breakfast and we were somewhat overwhelmed by the crowd / noise. I suppose that is expected since they also have the space to host conferences / events themselves, but it took us slightly by surprise because we’d been staying in slightly smaller hotels on this trip. The room was super cool, with a TV hidden behind a large mirror and so many (light) switches that we had a hard time figuring out how to turn everything off at night without activating the blackout blinds. On that note, there were plenty of outlets and USB chargers throughout the room, and the staff provided bottles of water throughout our stay.

We loved our stay at this hotel. The rooms are themed after movies (we had the Avatar room with an oval bed!), they are located in a slightly remote area ensuring quiet and beautiful views, and the breakfast was delicious. It is such a unique concept and I loved the nature-y vibe of the place.

This was such a relaxing, luxurious experience. We had a room that overlooked the Douro river and the pool was always nicely warm from the sun. The restaurant had delicious food, and their coffee in the morning was my favorite from all the hotels on this trip. The only complaint that we had was that it was difficult to sleep due to all the flies in our bedroom, and there weren't many outlets or surfaces for electronics (the bedside tables were quite small and had large bedside lamps on them).

This is a lovely hotel and we had a wonderful stay. The building looks brand new and is beautifully designed. The room was on the smaller size but perfect for what we needed, and it was very comfortable and functional. The restaurant was excellent (we had dinner there one night and breakfast throughout our stay, both meals were crafted with attention to detail) and the bar upstairs was quirky and fun (they serve cocktails in mad hatter cups). The pool was small and you had to go through the bar to access it, but we still enjoyed using it. The only thing that bothered us during our stay is that I requested an iron multiple times and it was never delivered. In some hotels this is standard room equipment, and in others I haven’t had any issues getting in delivered on demand so I was quite surprised that it was such a problem for them to handle this quite reasonable request.

We had a nice time in Evora. The Chapel of Bones is really something else. Our guide was very friendly and we really enjoyed our last guided tour!

I'm not sure how much this trip cost, but it felt like we could have saved some money driving ourselves to Cascais and Sintra, especially since the driver didn't come to the monuments with us. Sintra boasts a gorgeous castle, but it is also very overrun with tourists. We were not prepared for the crowds. We're also pretty sure we missed part of the castle - was there supposed to be an interior? Overall, it was nice to have a day to just sit and let ourselves be chauffeured around, but the car was TOO nice and we were suspicious how much we'd paid for this.

It was nice that everything was paid for in advance so we didn't have to worry about paying, and the food was nice, but I was hoping for a bit more Fado. I loved the music, but they only performed 4x during the course of the night.

After an initial mix-up where our TukTuk didn't show up on time, we still ended up going later in the day. I really enjoyed riding in the Tuk Tuk, but the guide didn't have much new information to share - I felt like I'd already heard most of the things from other guides on this trip. Overall, I could've sat in the vehicle for longer, but the churches and descriptions fell a bit flat.

Obidos is such a cute town, and their cherry liquor in chocolate cups is to die for. Loved this day!

We had a nice guides and learned a lot about the area. Our favorite was definitely the Convent of Christ - what a magnificent church!

It would have been better to have a guide for this day. We went to Fatima first and were mostly confused by what everyone was doing (like walking on knees), then spent too much time in Nazare and ended up missing the Batalha monastery (we did go, but it was already closed unfortunately). It was still a good day though!

We hadn't done a cooking class before so we didn't know what to expect. We were surprised by how much prep they had already done - we didn't have to do any chopping, just basic assembly, which was a bit anticlimactic. Of course we never would have finished in time otherwise, since we made three courses. We really liked our starter salad, but the main dish for me was too much to eat. Dessert was probably my favorite part, we had a lava cake with raspberry sorbet. Our cooking instructor was very friendly and we enjoyed spending the time with her. I think I was expecting more of a group class, and more "pro tips" that you can generalize, instead of just putting together someone else's recipe, but we still had fun!

Coimbra is such an amazing city. The university library is phenomenal! Our guide was also very knowledgeable and we enjoyed hearing about the thesis defenses of doctors and other such student experiences. We felt like we saw all the important parts of Coimbra and it was all very interesting.

When we first arrived at the dock, they gave us a hard time about not having a ticket. Eventually, the magic words seemed to be "The Host" and we were allowed to board, but by then a huge group of other passengers had taken up most of the available seats. We were also expecting some kind of "tour", but we were supposed to download an app for the audio tour which seemed like a huge hassle and we couldn't get it working. The boat ride was only 1 hour, we would have liked to go for longer.

Nice tour and wine tasting. I didn't actually like their wines as much as some others we had on this trip, but the experience overall was still very nice.

We were initially a bit skeptical about the museum (Douro museum? What is that??) but our skepticism quickly turned to enthusiasm. This is such a cool place! The tour was amazing, and we learned so much about the region and the history of Port. The guide even took us past their back rooms where they are restoring art, showed us a special exhibit (unrelated to wine), and we got some free port at the end of it! This museum is anything but stuffy - they even have some interactive exhibits, where you can smell aromas that are present in wine, and they have exhibits of old machines used to put corks in bottles.

The garden of this place is absolutely incredible, well worth a visit! The guide was also extremely friendly and knowledgeable. The wines were tasty, but I was surprised that none of the places we went for wine tastings had any snacks or food pairings. It might be nice to add some food to some of these tours so you don't get too tipsy ;)

This was a fairly standard wine tasting trip. It was good, but nothing stood out in particular.

Great tour. The guide was extremely knowledgeable and friendly, plus his English was impeccable. All the wines we had on this tour were very tasty. I have to admit that the food items weren't so much my favorite (and we did make the mistake of having some breakfast beforehand), but overall I really enjoyed this tour, especially the visit to the market where we had canned fish.

Wonderful hotel. Staff were very helpful. Excellent location within walking distance of local restaurants.

Wonderful location for our morning flight. Clean and beautiful. The restaurant was the perfect way to spend our just meal in Portugal . 5 star in every way.

I will never forget this night in Portugal! What an experience listening to these stories being sung with beautiful music. A dinner show like no other.. A must for your visit.

The quality of the food and accommodations were for Star.

Everybody there could not have been more accommodating and kind. It was a great location to get anywhere.

The hotel in Porto was pretty good. It had breakfast included, but the options were limited.

The Real Bellavista Hotel and Spa in Albufeira was great. It had a 4-star rating, and the breakfast options were excellent. They also provided a shuttle to the downtown area, which was a nice addition.

Our food and wine tour in Porto was enjoyable, but we had a slight issue with the meeting point, which was farther than expected from our hotel. We took an Uber and got reimbursed for it. The tour itself was good, but since my parents don't drink much wine, it would have been nice to have more variety in the activities.

The Douro Valley tour was one of my favorites. The scenery was beautiful, and we had a great lunch at a villa with a pool and an amazing view of the vineyards. The food was really good, and the tour was well-organized.

The TukTuk tour in Lisbon was fantastic. The company was very accommodating to our interests, and the driver took us to all the places we wanted to see while explaining everything nicely.

The tour to Sintra, Cascais, and Estoril was really enjoyable. The tour guides were friendly and knowledgeable, and the transportation was comfortable.

The boat tour to the Benagil Caves and dolphin sighting was a lot of fun. The tour took us around the coastline, and we enjoyed the views, dolphins, music, and cruising on the water.