Parque Mourabel, Oásis Village & Pé do Lago

We were most impressed with our one-bedroom superior apartment. If you look at the building from above, online, you will see that a few of the rooms have massive rooftop balconies. Ours had probably the largest of these and it was south-facing, with a sea view. I think, from the fire escape route map in the kitchen, that slightly larger apartment 81 was our only realistic competitor for the largest balcony top spot. Ours more rectangular. Theirs less so. We had four windows / doors into the outside space and all of these had electrically operated blackout blinds. The television had a few English language channels; Sky News, Sky Arts and some pop video channels. There were aircon / heating units in the lounge area and in the bedroom. The two sofas in the lounge would each have functioned as a single bed. The dining table was close enough to an electrical point and to the television for me to click away on my laptop while watching TV. The hot water was never in short supply and the shower was good. They brought us an unsolicited bottle of wine when we had a birthday during our stay. There always seemed to be people sat around the pool, although we were not amongst them. The staff were very helpful and checkout was at noon, which was handy. The key comes out of the front door horizontally, which is OK when you know that. There are two lifts and a flight of stairs to get to the top / fifth floor. The adequate local shop is beneath a nearby hotel, on the other side of the road to where the internet map shows it. There is a better Spar a few minutes walk away. The recycling point is just opposite the hotel. The thrice-daily hotel minibus down to the marina was reliable. The number 9 public bus can be caught to either Albufeira or Faro from a street away from behind the hotel. With it comfortably quiet around the hotel, it may help you to know that the walk up from the town is an easy one along the cycle track that runs up the middle of the dual carriageway. While I am definitely recommending this hotel, there are a few things that might be helpful to know: There could have been more electrical sockets in the apartment. The door handles protrude both sides of the spindle, doubling the chances of catching trouser pockets when passing. Self-catering; we found the kitchen to be poorly equipped and the knobs on the cooker to be unreliable. I don’t understand how the touch sensitive hob could ever have seemed like a good idea to anyone in any context. The kitchen bin could have been bigger; I didn’t even know that black bags that small were a thing. The bathroom could have had more than one hook on the walls and a functioning extractor fan. The shelf above the head end of the beds ruled out sitting up in bed. I thought that the fee to use the safe in our room was a bit mean when the aircon was free and the electricity not limited a by card in a slot. Take a moment, early in your stay, to flick through the apartment’s information book.