Sur Restinga

This hotel has seen better days and both service (front staff mostly invisible) and cleaning could be very easily improved but the location is perfect, the small room ok for one or two nights and the price at the right level. On top of that that there is not much in terms of hotels offer in La Restinga, so you might end up there whether you’re willing or not!

First the good points...friendly staff (especially Eva), privileged location, well-furnished room, good value. Then the bad...no Wi-Fi in any rooms...Wi-fi is only available in the open air courtyard outside of Reception, so one has to be with the wind, rain, cold, and/or darkness in order to connect with the rest of the world.

The apartment we had was a good size, with a very functional kitchen for a holiday apartment. Everything was brand new and out of an Ikea catalogue. The architect might have been drunk when he drew the plans though. As the layout is weird with passages going nowhere. The lift doesn’t work but that’s not a huge issue. Staff are friendly but don’t speak any English. Room was cleaned every day, which was a plus. All in all if you want a good value apartment in La Restinga, this is it.

Upon arrival the staff said 'if there is a problem, just write a bad review'...so I guess here we are. Our room was not properly cleaned both in the living area as in the bathroom there were clumps of hair from previous guests and the floor still had sand and dust. The sheets were luckily changed and clean. When we told the staff they said 'sorry we can clean tomorrow'. That brings us to the next issue: there was only one copy of the key. We were told to 'not loose it or no one could enter the room'. It also meant that we had to drop off the key if we wanted the room to be cleaned. Our of the 6 mornings, we only found someone at the reception when we wanted to drop off the key in the morning. The kitchen was disappointing. It would have been nice to have pepper, salt and olive oil available, but OK not a disaster, small packages are available in the supermarket. What we found annoying was that the kitchen was poorly equipped. Technically this is a room for two adults, a child and a baby/toddler; if you already manage to get a meal cooked with the world's largest and also the world's smallest pot, a wok and a small pan...serving it is another matter. We literally had one big plate, one plastic plate, two bowls, two small plates and two soup plates. We eventually had to ask for a normal sized pot to boil pasta and for an extra plate. Don't count on a nice morning coffee...a water boiler and a microwave is the only thing you get. Enough complaining because there were definitely good things. The location is fantastic. Once the room was clean, we used an extra sheet to cover the dirty sofa, we reshuffled furniture to make more space...it was nice. The kitchen was doable with the extra plate and the normally sized pot. Our room had a huge terras. While an umbrella would definitely be added value, it was nice to be there. This place needs some extra care and attention to really be comfortable.

As there are only two pros: few steps from the sea and the price. Really, nothing more. In a nutshell: Kitchen is useless as there is no water flowing from the sink. Shower is impossible as you basically transform the entire bathroom in a swimming pool as there is only a curtain as a shower box. They left our bedroom door opened after cleaning. The door faces the terrace and from there you can directly go to the street. Meaning that everyone can enter..... We pointed these things to the owner but the answer was ‘ it can happen’. NO, it cannot imho. Plus the first nigh was impossible to sleep due to people screaming and listening to the music on the beach. Really bad experience and I am not exaggerating. Won’t return for any reason. They really do not know how to run an hotel.

This place is a real mess. The studio room had cracks on the walls and we fought with flies, ants and bugs for the whole stay. The kitchen had almost no running water and the bathroom was so tiny, the shower had no complete draining system so it was constantly damp. The room we had had a lovely view on the beach, too bad people have parties until the morning and we could’nt sleep. When we asked the staff if we could possibly have another room, maybe a bit detached from the beach, they told us “it’s not the hotel’s problem if you had no sleep”. Well, thanks. On the second day we came back from a day out to find the room opened with the spare key (probably used for cleaning) hanging on the outside of the door. Luckily nothing was missing, but we were kinda worried as we had valuable things in our suitcases (like people do when they leave their hotel room to visit a place they don’t know, instead of carrying laptops and passports with them on trails and on the beach) As we told the staff, they told us “it happens sometimes”. Please consider that the access to the room is an outside terrace where actually anyone (even customers of the bar which seats right by the hotel) can easily get. “It happens” or “it’s normal” is the only answer you get from the staff when you point out things which do not work (like the non existent running water of the kitchen). ONLY GOOD THING: the room was cleaned each day. Apart from that, I would NEVER recommend this place. Last but not least: the only staff person apart from the cleaning ladies (who were very nice) is a young man with huge headphones on all day, who does nothing but smoking outside of the reception and barely answers when you ask him things. If you stay here, allow your room to be left open all day long with your things inside for everyone to snatch.