We stayed at Tivoli Marina Vilamoura in August this year as a family of four. We knew we wanted to go to Portugal and specifically wanted somewhere with direct beach access, which is surprisingly difficult to find in this part of the Algarve.
In this post:
Location
Vilamoura is 30 minutes from Faro Airport, and its location within Vilamoura is the biggest asset. With direct beach access on one side and direct marina access on the other side, it’s really hard to beat this if this is the kind of holiday you are looking for.
Tivoli Marina Vilamoura is partnered with Purobeach, with their beachfront club just across a small service road. We also chose the hotel because it sits right on the marina, meaning we could easily walk out for dinner most evenings.
I’ve been visiting Portugal for many years, including summers here as a child, and have always loved Vilamoura. This time, though, we couldn’t help feeling that the marina has lost some of its appeal. There seemed to be far more large groups, while some of the bars and restaurants felt a little tackier and more focused on getting people through the door than the food and overall experience. Of course, that’s subjective, but Vilamoura definitely felt different to how I remembered it.
We flew into Lisbon Airport as we were arriving from Venice and there were no suitable flights to Faro. The drive took around 2.5 hours, compared with only around 30 minutes from Faro Airport, which we flew home from.
Check In
I thought we were off to a positive start when I received a pre-arrival email asking about things like our arrival time and what bed configuration we wanted. It quickly went downhill when I responded and they had no idea what I was on about. I tried explaining that I was simply replying to their email. I eventually gave up and told them not to worry about it.
We arrived early evening to a fairly quiet reception. It’s a nice open space, with plenty of seating and a lovely little café selling Parisian-style cakes and hosting afternoon tea.
I would say that initially, whilst passable, the hotel was a little more dated than I was expecting, as you’ll read throughout the review. Clean but starting to show age.
We were greeted by Beatrice, who explained our benefits (so we thought) and the hotel facilities. Check-in seemed to take quite a while for some reason and, whilst friendly, the interaction was mostly transactional.
There are four lifts and these could get very busy. We were lucky being on the top floor, but on the way down we would sometimes stop at most levels only for the lift to be too full for anyone else to get in. Understandable in August, but frustrating if you were staying on a lower floor.
Room
We had booked the Vilamoura Suite with Sea View, mainly because we wanted a separate living area for the kids and the Family Rooms are quite dated. We also preferred its fresher décor to the Junior Suite. Tivilo has more room types than I have ever seen before but our suite is only one of two in the whole hotel and looked a little more modern than the dated, mostly bland rooms they have otherwise.
The suite has a WC off the entrance hall and a good-sized living area with a table and chairs, sofa bed, minibar, coffee station, large wardrobe and balcony with a day bed.
A door separates this from the bedroom, which had a super king-size bed, more wardrobes and a second balcony with a beautiful sea view.
Storage was excellent, with more than enough for a family of four to fully unpack for a week.
The large bathroom had a bath, separate shower, toilet, bidet and double vanity, although oddly the shower itself was quite cramped.
Toiletries were Natura Bissé in those very annoying small bottles, and our shower gel wasn’t replaced once it ran out. Instead, we seemed to acquire an ever-growing collection of body cream! Not being able to reach anyone on the phone we purchased our own showergel from a local shop.
The room looked mostly modern and nicely designed, although the heavy dark wood doors aged it slightly and there were some frustrating design flaws. One wardrobe couldn’t be accessed with the living room door open, while another door blocked the minibar. The doors were also extremely heavy and creaky, not ideal when trying to sneak around with sleeping children.
The air conditioning (clearly throttled for cost-saving) never seemed to get the room properly cold, while the balcony lights couldn’t be switched off, meaning quite a lot of light leaked into the room at night.
More concerning was the lack of a safety chain on the main door, so in theory our child could wake up without us knowing and open the door. Same for the balcony door, which didn’t actually lock due to the age of the door. Cleanliness could also have been better. The carpets were stained, and we spotted Toblerone wrappers from previous guests underneath a radio, which remained there throughout our stay. They were at my slightly shorter-than-average eye level, but they should certainly have been spotted!
The suite included a choice of one Tivoli Experience: dinner for two at Pepper’s Steakhouse, an 80-minute Tivoli Spa treatment or reserved loungers at Purobeach Beachfront or Poolside. Other benefits included priority check-in/out and a minibar refilled daily with soft drinks.
It wasn’t made particularly clear how to redeem the experience. We asked reception a couple of times without getting anywhere, so later asked for it to be applied retrospectively to a massage. There was initially some pushback despite our earlier attempts to clarify it, although the hotel did ultimately honour the benefit.
I want to add that I have never stayed at a luxury hotel where they almost never answer the phone. It was a super frustrating part of our stay, which often resulted in trips to reception unnecessarily when we could be relaxing.
Pool and Beach
There are two pools, a large main pool with a shallow section around the outside and a smaller children’s pool. The main pool was one reason we chose the hotel, particularly that large shallow area for the kids.
Unfortunately, the water was absolutely freezing. Even our son, who would normally happily spend hours in a pool, asked to get out because he was so cold. This was a common theme amongst most guests who all shared our thoughts. I know it was August but the water temperature was unacceptable for a luxury hotel.
Our biggest frustration, though, was sun-lounger hogging. Thanks to the kids we were up early every morning, and from our balcony at around 7am I’d estimate 30% of the loungers were already reserved with belongings. By 8am it was closer to 60%, including all the prime front-row loungers.
One day, the people who had reserved the loungers in front of us didn’t appear until 1pm. Staff told us some guests were even leaving things on loungers overnight. Absolute madness.
The strange thing was that there were enough loungers overall, with staff finding extra beds and umbrellas for people arriving later. We even received a note reminding guests of the rules, but saw little evidence of them being enforced.
Balls and inflatables, however, were strictly prohibited. I can understand why when the pool gets busy, although it was a shame the lounger rules weren’t enforced quite as enthusiastically. There were also around eight loungers reserved for disabled guests.
The pool staff were really attentive and friendly, and brought around melon in the morning and mini Magnums in the afternoon.
Again, like most of the hotel, the pool itself was lovely, but the small cobblestones that make up most of the exterior surround are showing age, with multiple missing, which creates an obvious trip hazard.
We headed to the beach most days for digging and splashing in the baltic Mediterranean Sea!
One day we paid around £35 for two front row loungers at Purobeach after the 10% Tivoli guest discount, including two bottles of water and a fruit bowl. We simply turned up and there was plenty of availability. The loungers were comfortable and staff attentive.
Dining
On our first night we wanted a quick dinner with the kids, but there wasn’t really a great option. Oregano, the Italian restaurant, is buffet-only in the evenings (sorry, just not our vibe), the Pool Bar closes at 7pm and Pepper’s Steakhouse felt a little formal. A casual à la carte evening option was something we felt the hotel was missing.
That said, the marina is right on the doorstep with a huge choice of restaurants within a few minutes’ walk.
We went for Pepper’s anyway and were glad we did. We had two exceptional burgers, the kids were really well catered for and the staff were incredibly friendly.
Actual delivery of the food and drinks was painfully slow, particularly as we were the first ones in, but the food and staff made up for it.
We ate at Oregano for lunch a couple of times.
The hearty Italian food was tasty and good quality, if a little heavy for a pool day.
We still preferred it to the Pool Bar after a disappointing Caesar salad with stale croutons, processed chicken and a bit of Parmesan, very uninspiring. Whilst there are tables, they have removed 90% of the actual bar stools from the bar which was a shame as we always enjoy drinks sat at the bar.
Another lunchtime option is Purobeach.
It had a great atmosphere and during one lunch a roaming quartet even sang Baby Shark to the kids, which was great fun.
Unfortunately, our fresh sea bass arrived undercooked. They quickly offered to cook another, but frustratingly the replacement wasn’t properly cooked either due to rushing.
We also really liked Argo Cocktail Bar.
Hotel bars can often lack atmosphere, but Argo was a good kind of busy, with live entertainment every night. The knowledgeable bar staff were clearly very proud of their Signature Cocktails and encouraged us to try them.
Breakfast was served in Voyage, a large restaurant with plenty of indoor and outdoor seating.
The spread was extensive and replenished quickly, with cooked and continental options plus a live egg station. Strangely, they provided tiny tweezers for picking up berries, which appeared to be driving everybody mad.
At around 8am it was busy but never chaotic. We did notice queues to be seated between 9am and 10am, although I’m not sure how long the wait was.
Other Facilities
We didn’t use the gym, but it was a decent size for a hotel gym with plenty of equipment.
Eugene did fit in a massage at the spa, which he really enjoyed. Things got slightly strange afterwards when staff tried to sell him a large €175 light therapy device they’d used on his back. They had already added it to his bill and even had it boxed, bagged and ready to go! They were remarkably insistent, but quite how they thought he was getting it home in his suitcase, I’m not sure. No thanks.
We visited the kids’ club with our son a couple of times. It was a nice, cool space and the staff were friendly, although it wasn’t the most engaging kids’ club we’ve experienced.
I also noticed quite a few children seemingly coming and going by themselves, which made me a little uncomfortable from a safety point of view.
Conclusion
Overall, we left Tivoli Marina Vilamoura feeling disappointed. There was a lot we liked, but for a hotel at this level and price point, there were simply too many things that fell short.
One thing we haven’t mentioned enough is the staff. In general, they were incredibly warm and friendly, particularly around the pool and restaurants, and several took the time to get to know the kids and us. Unfortunately, the service and organisation didn’t always match that warmth. Even at check-out, we ended up waiting almost 30 minutes for our bags to be brought down, which added great stress.
The location is excellent, our suite gave us plenty of space as a family of four and having the beach and marina on the doorstep is a real advantage. But issues with cleanliness, air conditioning, sun-lounger reservations and inconsistent service aren’t things I’d expect to encounter quite so often at a hotel positioning itself at this level.
Would we return? Probably not anytime in the near future. We didn’t have a bad stay, and there are plenty of things Tivoli Marina Vilamoura gets right, but there are other hotels we’d be tempted to try before coming back. With more attention to the details, it could be an excellent resort, but it didn’t quite deliver the luxury experience we had hoped for.
