Bellevue Belsana

Amazingly friendly staff, very clean basic rooms with AC. Great price and location, everything is within a ten minute walk, beach shop’s restaurants etc. pool is on the 1st floor balcony overlooking the sea! The rooms are a throwback from the seventies, but very clean and comfortable.

Arrived here via Jet2 last minute break doing Monday to Friday. Check in was seamless. Staff very friendly. Room was lovely, bathroom spacious with bath and overhead shower. Full vanity sink great lighting around the mirror (important for us females!) toilet . Complimentary shower gel and handwash. Bedroom was roomy with 2 singles pushed together and a sofa bed too. The bed was very comfortable. The wardrobe was double with plenty of shelving and hanging space and hangers. Safety deposit box too but I didn’t personally use that. Air conditioning was ok. That’s the room done now for the hotel itself! The lobby, dining room , bar area all very modern and spotless clean. I was half board and the breakfast was a good choice of hot and cold food. The food could have been warmer but there was a microwave there to use! Evening meals weee different every night, pizzas, pastas, salad, fish (very nice!) beef cassoulet etc. cold options of cheeses, salads, hams, salamis also. Plenty of refreshments although wine was extra at €2.80 a glass. Desserts were plentiful. Now to the pool area, very spacious lots of new sunloungers, parasols, cabanas and seating. Absolutely no getting up early to place a towel. Pool attendant on sight throughout the day. Snack bar I think missing a trick only serving crisps and ice cream. A little snack menu would be great as there is no lunches available here. The resort itself was a little run down in places but there were a few really good bars and restaurants nearby (5min walk) that were worth a visit. Spar shop to hand selling pastries, newspapers etc daily so handy. All in all a great 5 day stay. I travelled alone, I felt safe and had a relaxing week. Would go back.

A 2 star hotel at best. 1 star for being a hotel and 1 star for fooling Tripadvisor. Where should I start. Lets go with the good points- Reception staff were helpful. View from our balcony was stunning at sunset and looking over to the lighthouse The bad points The restaurant - always cold regardless if it was breakfast or evening meal, bland food, chicken/beef/pork casserole tasted the same every day, little choice. We even had the misfortune of sitting at a laid table only to be barked at by the waitress(Sara)that we shouldn’t sit there. When I confronted her and pointed out it should be cordoned off, she shook her fists and stormed off- 10/10 comedy value though. A glass of water is 2 euros. If you want ice at the bar to take to your room, it’s 1 euro per cup. The room. Small but comfortable. Very basic. No fridge etc(that’s why I asked for ice). Beds were single put up beds on wheels so if you were lucky enough to get a Cwtch, you ended up falling through the middle- no pun intended. Slightly reminiscent of the overlook hotel from the shining. The pool. Bit small as they’ve segregated a third of it with chrome railings so kids can play in it. No pool towels. You have to bring your own. Never saw any kids at the hotel. The maintenance guy also kicks you out of the pool area at 7 so he can clean. No real sports facilities unless you want to play table tennis with flat ping pong ball or tennis with 1 tennis ball. All in all, possibly the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. Would I come to Portocolom again. Yes I would as it’s a lovely place and if you hire a car, there is so much on your doorstep you can visit. Would I stay at the BV Bellevue Balsana again. I think not. Should you? Play the lottery. You have a better chance of being lucky.

Pros comfy bed quiet place nice reception staff and lovely views from balcony. Now for the cons here we go. There is no facilities in the room not even a fridge to keep water cold no kettle or toaster or anything they can be hired at reception but you have to pay which is ridiculous I had to fill bathroom sink up with cold water to try and keep drinks cold. The pool bar does not serve any food at all only drinks so if your hungry during the day you have to go out for food which is annoying if you just want to lie at the pool. The breakfast was medicore and basic I only ate there a couple of times and wasn't impressed. Also the service at the bar was absolutely shocking I waited 10 minutes just to get served a drink and the barmaid was so rude and just completely ignored me even after I tried to get her attention. I was waiting so long it felt awkward and uncomfortable eventually a group of German people at the bar actually had to tell her to serve me it was so embarrassing. A while later I went to get another drink and was waiting even longer about 20 minutes just to get a drink and the bar wasn't even busy so I just gave up and left.

I don’t believe that Tui visited this hotel before selling holidays to it because it is an absolute disgrace. It has a beautiful view across to the lighthouse and the overworked staff do their best, pool area was lovely.. The food was dreadful, the beans at breakfast, once the tray had started to go down, they topped it up with water, dinner had rock hard cold potato wedges, turkey stew which had been boiled until you could have souled your shoes with it. Chicken from the grill was undercooked, there was one cake on desserts and when it was gone that was it. One night I had a soup roll with chips, just couldn’t go back in to the restaurant and ate out from then on. No fridge in room and could not be hired. No kettle in room or cups for tea. Only English tv channel was BBC World news. Pool bar does NOT do snacks of any description although Tui says it does. Inside bar is not staffed, you have to go to the dining room and ask a waitress to leave dinner service and come get you a drink and she wasn’t pleased. NO Entertainment at any time. WALKING DISABILITIES. If you have any form of walking disabilities this is not the place for you, the area is hilly and footpaths are slippy and steep, something Tui fails to mention. There are steps up to the hotel entrance, NO Ramp. There are TWENTY STEPS to the pool area and bar. NO Lift This hotel needs totally modernised and there is not enough staff to meet the needs of their staff.

"Where to start" as they say. Although in August and the hotel was full, the place was dead - the pool has no snack bar (they say it does but it does not), and the main bar was deserted. Even the patio area with garden furniture, many of the seats were broken, and one 2-seater looked as though it had been demolished. Our room was a disgrace. The laminate flooring had been poorly fitted, much of it loose with gaps, and at its worst in the bathroom where one of the laminate planks was springing up loose and fouled by the bottom of the bathroom door. The silicone sealant was poorly done, cracked and full of black mould - along junction of the flooring and WC pan, between the bathroom flooring and the walls black mould, and very bad in the shower area, a lot of black mould as the sealant was defective, cracked etc, with black mould. The beds were old and grubby and worn out - even the edges of the beds were threadbare and badly worn. Also the mattress totally unsupportive and sagging. They did replace the mattress which wasn't as bad but still poor and still on a badly worn old bed base with threadbare edges. The standard of finish throughout was very poor. Whoever had done the laminate flooring did so very poorly, and not rectified. I work in construction both newbuild and refab, it appears they've just accepted bad workmanship, never had it put right and it's gone downhill from there. The place needs gutted out and done professionally. The staff try hard, especially Iman - she is very professional - but there appears to be a lack of investment by the owners. Even the hotel entrance canopy is falling apart - that is not the fault of staff but of those who own the property not investing and letting it go downhill. It would not surprise me if in the near future there were to be a change of ownership and the whole place gutted out and refurbished head to toe - it badly needs it. Including the ancient lift which seems to have been installed many decades ago. And even the row of clocks in Reception stating the time in various World Cities don't work and are all askew - a sign of a bygone era now sadly lapsed. We thought that the Restaurant staff work really hard (especially the relatively young Manageress) and the wine and drinks there were reasonably priced but again the place is crying out for investment and refurbishment. Even the stage in the main bar seemed to be cordoned off in a state of permanent dis-use together with the table tennis table next to it and pool table - both unused when we were there along with the deserted bar - even though the hotel was full - you could hear people commenting on how badly run everything seemed to be, and we heard a complaining guest in reception walking away with a disgruntled quip "...it doesn't work like everything in this hotel". Sorry, but in our humble opinion this place is not 3-star, nowhere near, and it certainly does not compare favourably at all with other hotels we've been to with suc