Pestana Atlantic Gardens Cascais

We spent 4 days at the Atlatic Gardens before travelling south to the Algarve and really enjoyed it. The hotel provides a great base if you have a car for driving out to Sintra or the shuttle into Cascais drops you right at the station where a train into Lisbon takes 40 mins and costs just 3 Euro return. Beware that the last hotel shuttle returns at 6pm, so after that it is a reasonably priced taxi. Restaurants proved good value in Cascais - we found nice ones behind the fish market, and the Marina is great to walk round although we did not have a lot of success at the restaurants there. With a small child in a cot we upgraded our room to a larger one with a nice ocean view. The pool is not heated and by our visit (2nd week Oct), was getting too cold to use.

The room was tidy and the staff very friendly although the bathroom could have done with a deeper clean to remove a bit of mould around the tiling. I would suspect that when busy in the high season this hotel would be a lot less welcoming.

Further to other comments, we did not try the hotel restaurant - the ones in Cascais are much better value.

Holiday September 2004 with 7 other golfers.

Rooms were excellent, loved the small kitchenette.

Staff were more than helpful, breakfasts were good with a wide choice kitchen staff were very accomodating I had poached eggs most mornings.

Pillows could have been better but then I always take my own. Air conditioning did go off when the key was taken out of the trip switch key holder, this could be overridden by placing a business card in the switch when leaving the room. The pools gym and other facilities were excellent, enough going on around the hotel with a good supermarket and pastelaria. Free bus into Cascais, what more can you want. The guy who voted this the hotel for hell should get a life or don't leave the USA.

Where do I begin....

The photos that are furnished from Expedia are too old and incorrect. I was really disappointed to get to the hotel to find that the spa had been filled in with dirt and plants. I would say the photos are atleast 5 years old or so.

The food in the hotel just horrible. EVERY morning you will find the SAME food. We even found leftovers from the night before recycled into the breakfast course the next morning. THAT IS a MAJOR NO-NO for a hotel in this price range. My wife and I got tired of eating watery scrambled eggs and ham, so we went across the street to a small supermarket and bought our own food to cook.

All the rooms booked through expedia offer a view of the front of the hotel, and adjacent hotels. It is hardly a "garden view" as advertised. Also, you will find that the bed is actually TWO twin beds pushed together. You can barely see this in the photos if you look closely. The only way to get a queen or king bed is to upgrade to a more expensive room.

The are not really big on air conditioning. We had our AC run all day while we were out and it barely cooled the room. I reported this to the front desk, a guy came out and looked at it, then it was only slightly colder. This was despite the fact that I set the guage to read 5 degrees!

Our showerhead swiveled everytime we turned it on and it would spray the back of the shower and get the floor all wet. The only way to take a shower was to hold the head in your hand while lathering yourself with the other. I could have probably requested them fix this, but I was already disappointed in the fact that I was staying at this terrible hotel.

The beds and pillow were awful. I felt like I was sleeping on a piece of toast and the pillow was quite small and lumpy. I got no sleep while I was on vacation.

There is really NOTHING around the area of the hotel. There is a nice bakery, a small mini-mart and a pizza place that was gross and that is it! You will have to take a taxi into the downtown area or "centro" as they call it. This will cost you about 5-8 euros each way. There is NO beachfront in this area, and actually the coast all the way to Lisbon only has moderately small beaches here and there.

The area along the coast is quite expensive for the quality you get. We paid anywhere from 60-100 euros a night for 2 people eating a modest dinner. I was reall shocked how expensive the area was for the quality you got. I was also shocked that the fresh fish was 40-100 euros A PLATE considering this was once a small fishing village and its on the coast. Also there is not much variety of food in the area. Some restaurants had identical dishes to other ones we visited. I would never recommend this area to anyone but if you must go to this hell on earth, DO NOT STAY at this hotel unless you enjoy getting ripped off.

The only good thing about this hotel was the courteous and very helpful staff. For 150+ euros a night, that just doesn't make up for the poor food and inadequate rooms.

We stayed in September 2003. The building right next to the hotel (sharing walls) was renovated - so it was noisy. Food was OK-ish. Service was Ok. For a week we were carrying our baby's straller to get to the swimming pool, as they said there's no elevator. The day we were leaving we dicovered that there is an elevator to get to the pool. Stupid. Also, be careful when using their phones, the system is very stupid, they tell you how much an impuls cost, but don't tell you how many impulses for which country are needed. So at the end I recieved the biggest eve telephone bill of 200 euros!!! I complained, they agreed that the system was bad and they are changing it, but refused to do anything about my bill

This Hotel is perfect value for money and the staff is very professional and nice.

Me and my family loved the indoor heated pool and the outdoor pool and the Kids Club was perfect for my 6 years old son !

I recomend this hotel

Our family spent three days in Cascais in April of 2004. We very much enjoyed the stay at this hotel. The girls were thrilled with the warm pool (somewhat of a luxury in Portugal in April), and we enjoyed the politeness of the hotel staff. The hotel is right by the ocean, and there are pathways on the rocks for great views. The shuttle bus to Cascais centre was a very nice convenience - it runs every hour. All in all, we would definitely stay there again. The hotel restaurant was a little pricey, but there are many places to eat in Cascais city centre.

I thought this hotel was well placed (easy to find, good parking) for Cascais; it takes about 15 minutes to walk into the town centre. The hotel itself is of a good standard; the rooms have recently been remodelled and refurbished and were spotless. Comfortable beds. There were very few other guests at the hotel (20th December) and for a rate of 60 Euros per night, I'm not complaining.

excellent price-facilities relation. Excellent rooms with nice views.

Nice gardens and outdoor and indoor pools. I think the bar was too expensive. so I didn´t try the restaurant

Stayed 21 June 03 to 25 June 03 All rooms on the 5th floor have been done up I don`t know about the other floors Your room safe will have a hole where the lock should be it`s not broken they keep the lock barrels + keys at receiption + charge 1.50 per day for there use even if your conformation print-out says its included it`s not, the duty manger was very definite about the extra charge Pool areas are clean, pool towels are provided free of charge, the jacussi breaks down daily if asked they do fix it but an hour later it`s gone again, to get to the steam + sauna rooms go through the toilets(the doors aren`t marked) Bedrooms are clean + fresh new carpets Etc. great sea views, good air conditioning Note: the pool bar, there is no price list posted for drinks only for food, everytime we bought a coke or coffee we were charged a different price VAL

The hotel had a fine touch of luxury (four stars), and a nice indoor-pool made a swimming holiday possible in mid-April. A splendid restaurant with ecellent breakfasts, lunch and dinner and friendly service. A complimentary shuttle service took us to town. A kitchenette in the room, and a nice balcony was nice and practical. Prices were moderate.