Cerro Mar Colina

We stayed for 3 weeks in a one bedroom apartment in building 5, #603. It is the building directly across the street from the Cerro Mar Garden. We booked through a travel agent that specialized in long term stays in the Algarve. This unit has a larger living/kitchen area than other apartments, is very bright and has a huge balcony with table and 2 chairs, and 2 loungers. (We traveled with friends who had their own apartment that was more standard size and felt darker, small balcony with just the table and chairs, no room for loungers.) The kitchen is equipped with dishes and pots and pans to meet most needs. There is a fridge with freezer, stove top, oven, dishwasher and clothes washer. We had no guarantee before we left that we would have a clothes washer, was happy to see it, but would have brought less if we had known there would be one. Other than one dish towel and one dish washing machine tablet, there were no other cleaning products. Being there for 3 weeks, we did buy a few dish cloths and soap. There was no pot holder, made use of the towel to remove items from the oven. My friend had asked their room attendant for a pot scrubber and also got one for us. The unit was cleaned every day, at least the bed was made. Towels were changed for us every couple of days, we did hang them up on the shower rod so might have been more often if we had left them on the floor each day. There is a refillable soap dispenser in the shower/tub. Other than that, no soap. shampoo or other products are provided. The dispenser was not convenient just for washing of hands. The pool area is nice. Being there in October, there was no issues with people reserving loungers. We had no trouble getting one when we needed. However, there are not a lot and I can see there would be issues in warmer weather as there are not many for the number of apartments. There is a charge for use of the safe in your unit, 1.50 Euros per day. Pool towels require refundable 5 Euros each. We had a vehicle and there was always free street parking available close to our building. Going in we knew there was no free internet available in the unit. We did try to use it in the lobby, but found it to slow to do much. We made the trip down to the square a couple of times a day, to walk around, have coffee and to access the very quick internet available there. I think this was my biggest complaint about the unit, in this day and age where internet is available just about everywhere, it should be made available and reliable - for free - in the units.

Stayed here with my husband in October, requested a room with a view and that we got. The appartment was very spacious with everything we needed, Aldi & Lidl are walking distance and an Uber back was only €2.50. We stocked up on food and drink for breakfast lunch and snacks and ate out at night.The pool area was very relaxing and clean. The old town is down a lot of steps but the square is literally at the bottom of them. If you don't want to venture back up them an Uber is only €2/3 euro The hotel has spa facilities which unfortunately I didnt avail of as we had great weather but used the changing area when leaving for the airport and it looked good.

As a family, we had a lovely time here.The apartment was well equipped with everything we needed. Everything was clean and very comfortable. We were in a block opposite the main hotel, but had full use of the hotel facilities which was excellent for us. My granddaughter enjoyed the pool, we tried the sauna and the steam room as well. The poolside cocktails were lovely and not overpriced. Two supermarkets were within walking distance (Lidl & Aldi). The town centre and beach were also walk-able, but quite a steep hill on the return. The hotel does provide a free mini bus service into town and back if needed. We did try the restaurant, which was very beautifully laid out with lovely views over the pool and gardens. Unfortunately the food wasn't quite what we expected, but would have been good value had it been our type of food. We all enjoyed our stay here, it was a good holiday.