Hotels near Portal de Gondoriz, Arcos de Valdevez

My wife and I stayed in the Luna Arcos Hotel in Arcos de Valdevez for one night during a holiday in Portugal. The hotel is modern and quite large with free parking outside. It is a short walk across the river to the city. Our room was clean and comfortable with a great view of the river and town. Our package included a good dinner, where the service was excellent. We also enjoyed a good breakfast from the large buffet.

Beautiful, quaint hotel. The views are delicious. The beds are to die for. The adorable boutique touches were appreciated. The fifth star would’ve been if sufficiently staffed, someone attending reception 24/7 as promised, housekeeping actually cleaning rooms, laundry/sitter services as promised, etc. Staffing clearly lacking. Overall, very promising hotel.

We were in awe of this home. So much to explore and so much history! Loved the thick granite walls and original wooden doors/shutters with hardware, antiques and displays everywhere, beautiful view, and even a pool. It is situated in a quaint little area by a church and you can easily walk down to the river. The area around Ponte da Barca is absolutely beautiful and fun to explore. The hosts are very friendly and offered a lovely breakfast.

We picked this location as we were going to a music festival nearby and taking odd days to explore the area…in between we were hoping to chill by the pool. How disappointed were. The plastic tree that greets you in the reception, is a pretty good representation of what you are going to get…Fake, this place is soulless and fake, but what makes it worse, it’s “tired fake”. From the dirty grubby carpets and chairs, black scuff marks on the once clean white walls and the cheap Italian style melamine furniture now chipped exposing its self for what it really is .. cheap coated chipboard. The first night we booked a table for dinner, on our way out we thought we’d have a drink in the bar first. The bar was empty of customers and bar staff so we made our way to the restaurant. The food was so bad it was comical. The tenderloin I ordered was so tough it should have been served with a chainsaw on the side. Breakfast the next morning was the same odd, awkward experience. But one thing we did realise they were actually other people staying at the hotel, not couples as you’d expect in a spa hotel but large families with lots of kids. We made our way out for the day. On our return we thought we we have a few hours buy the pool, .not possible, the pool was full of screaming children. So next option, sit on the balcony with a drink.. the balcony walls had black mold on them and the wooden deck was almost rotten and didn’t feel safe. Anyway below you had more screaming kids playing ball games. The 2nd morning we woke up and noticed that the 2 coffee pods that we had on the first morning hadn’t been replaced, I asked at reception on the way out and was told I need to pay an extra 1€ per pod after the first night.? Also the shower gel and shampoo were not replenished after the 3rd day I had to go to reception again and ask for them. I could go on… basically this place made us miserable, so miserable we changed our flight home at extra cost and checked out 2 days earlier than we were booked in for, losing the money for those last 2 nights. I would not recommend staying here.