Hotels Near Portão do Mar in Sao Jorge Island

I stayed 3 nights in this hotel as part of a group. The location on the coast, opposite Pico, is good, the (unheated) pool set in gardens looks nice. The rooms are small but adequate. It seems that the hotel is divided into two parts: those that have views over the pool, with coffee/tea facilities and those which don't (have views of the back of the restaurant and a bit of garden with some building works on the wall)! You can tell I was in the latter! This hotel prides itself on its breakfasts, with lots of home-baked goods (cakes, pies, pastries, biscuits). Unfortunately that is not much good if you can't eat gluten. It does not offer dinner in the evening. Since our group trip involved full board, we were sent to a pretty basic cafe up the road with formica tables and a very limited menu (vegetable soup, then grilled tuna or meat, then desert - which included tinned fruit salad one night). We had the same offer for 3 nights! The fish/meat was cooked freshly and well, at least! One big downside was that I slept with my window open rather than using aircon and got many mosquito bites - the only place this happened in the Azores. Maybe to do with the garden. Two things really annoyed me/us. On the last morning we were leaving early, as was another larger party. Our guide negotiated at length to get us a partial breakfast (excluding cooked items) before we left. We were told this would be in reception. Again, since I can't eat baked goods there was further negotiation to get me an apple and an orange set aside, as a special favour. When we arrived at 6.30 that morning, there had been dry sliced bread, sliced cheese and ham and coffee. I say 'there had been' because the previous group had eaten most of it (see picture). There was about 1 cm of milk left a jug to go with the remains of the coffee for our group of 9 and, of course, no fruit for me. That was very poor given that both the ferry and the flight out of Sao Jorge leave early so guests must regularly need to leave before breakfast opens at 7.30 am. The final insult was that I went to take my extra supplies of cheese/ham (because I couldn't eat much of their food) out of the room fridge when I left, only to find that it was warm. The fridge had been unplugged and the plug tucked behind the bin. This is a hotel with notices, if you know what I mean. There was a notice on the fridge whose English section said ' This refrigerator is for your use and is empty. If you wish to fill with any of these items, please contact directly the reception or ask for the room-service.' 'These items', was not explained/specified. So why unplug it if it is for my use? My food was ruined.

Sometimes the staff was very kind and helpful and sometimes rigid and hard. There is no kitchen or refrigerator to accommodate customers. The bedrooms are very small and the beds are noisy. On 6 beds, both of the center have no take or light. No serviette or soap provided. Healthcare is far from the bedrooms. The toilets were running and there was always water on the floor. No air conditioning, no ventilator and the boxes are not barriered. To finish on a positive note it was clean and the architecture of this old building is beautiful.

Il Sara Village si presenta come un albergo diffuso, stanze ampie, pulite con sala comune per colazione etc fornita di tutto quanto necessario, In giardino c'è un patio vista mare strepitosa. Miguel è un host eccezionale, non siamo riuscite a trovare un auto disponibile, ma grazie a lui il giorno dopo problema risolto auto con guida privata per tutto il giorno, gentile e disponibilissimo.