- Algarve Holidays
- Lagos
- Aqualuz - Suite Hotel Apartments
This delightful complex enjoys a central setting, lying on a slope in the south of Lagos. The hotel is situated just 600 metres away from Dona Ana Beach and 800 metres from the centre of the resort; Faro Airport is less than 70 kilometers away. Guests will find themselves just a short distance away from the commercial areas, shopping opportunities, dining options and entertainment venues. This wonderful complex appeals to guests who are looking to get away from it all, yet who are eager to be close to the heart of the entertainment. It enjoys an attractive architectural style, bathing guests in comfort and convenience. The studios and flats are tastefully designed, offering a relaxing setting in which to completely unwind at the end of the day. The accommodation options provide a veritable home away from home, and come complete with modern amenities.
Unfortunately, I have to give this hotel the lowest possible rating. I feel misled after staying here. I booked a room through Hotels.com and received an invoice showing an amount in EUR that I was supposed to pay at the hotel. When I arrived, the hotel presented me with the exact same invoice for €2,233 to pay.
The following day, I discovered that they had charged me in my home currency instead of the local currency, without giving me the option to choose between the two. This resulted in a 5 % (of course) conversion fee. For those who don’t know: you should always pay in the local currency.
When I raised the issue and had a lengthy discussion with the hotel, I was told that their card terminal does not allow the customer to choose the currency and that I would have to take the matter up with my bank.
A few days later, I spoke to a manager at the hotel. Her response was that she had no ide whether their terminals always charge guests in their home currency nor whether the hotel staff had incorrectly selected this option themselves. The conclusion was the same: they claimed they are not responsible.
I was told to take it up with my bank when I got home, which I did. And guess what? My bank confirmed that it is the hotel's responsibility to handle this, since they are the ones who processed the charge.
At this point, I don't have the energy to take the matter any further. However, I want to issue a strong warning to anyone planning to stay at this hotel: be very careful when paying, and make sure you check which currency you are being charged in, so you don't end up with the same unpleasant surprise.
We are unfortunately leaving this review because we feel other guests, particularly anyone travelling with a disabled family member, should be aware of our experience with Aqualuz Lagos.
This was not our first experience with Aqualuz. We had issues with accessibility during a previous stay, so when arranging this holiday we were extremely careful to make sure everything was confirmed in advance.
Before booking through Loveholidays, we specifically contacted Aqualuz directly to double-check that the required accessible/disabled room was available. We explained that my mother is disabled and that appropriate accommodation was essential. We were reassured that the room was available, which gave us the confidence to go ahead and make the booking.
Loveholidays also contacted Aqualuz regarding the requirement and requested the appropriate room. We were repeatedly reassured that this was being dealt with.
However, after the booking was made, we were subsequently told that the accessible room was not available.
After further chasing and even submitting a request through the hotel website, the room then suddenly became “available” — but only at this point after all the contact we had already had, we were told that we would have to pay an additional €512 to have it.
This was incredibly upsetting.
Our holiday cost over £6000 and we were not asking for some luxury upgrade or simply requesting a preferred room. We were asking for appropriate accommodation because one of the people travelling with us is disabled and genuinely requires accessible facilities.
What makes the situation even more difficult to accept is that we had exactly the same type of reservation last year and no additional money was taken from us for the accessible accommodation.
The accessible option was also not clearly visible to us or the agent as she confirmed in emails when making the booking, which is particularly concerning for anyone who needs accessibility as a necessity rather than a preference.
Communication and customer service
We spent a considerable amount of time contacting both Loveholidays and Aqualuz trying to resolve the situation.
We have to say that the communication from Aqualuz was extremely shoddy and frustrating. There were repeated delays, unclear responses and, at times, responses that simply did not appear to address what had actually been asked.
One particularly frustrating example was when we had been communicating through Loveholidays' agent, only for Aqualuz to effectively respond by telling the agent to contact Loveholidays regarding the matter. This was despite the agent already being the person communicating with Aqualuz on behalf of the booking.
It felt as though we were being passed from one side to the other rather than anyone taking ownership of the issue and providing a straightforward resolution.
By contrast, Loveholidays were supportive throughout this situation and their representatives made considerable efforts to try to resolve matters with Aqualuz. We appreciate the assistance they provided. Our concerns are specifically about the way Aqualuz handled the accessibility requirement and the communication surrounding it.
The previous complaint
One aspect of the communication particularly disappointed us. During the correspondence, Aqualuz appeared to suggest that we felt entitled to complain again because of our previous experience.
We want to be very clear that this was not the case.
The issues surrounding our previous stay were a completely separate matter and had already been resolved. In fact, Aqualuz themselves confirmed this in one of the many emails exchanged with us.
We did not refer to our previous experience because we expected preferential treatment or wanted to “complain again”. We referred to it because it was the reason we were particularly careful to check and confirm the accessibility arrangements before making this new booking.
Had the accessible room simply been provided as confirmed, there would have been no issue.
We have only reached the point of publishing this review now because, after giving Aqualuz every opportunity to resolve the matter directly and engaging in a lengthy email correspondence, we were left extremely dissatisfied with the final response we received from Aqualuz last week.
A special family celebration overshadowed
This holiday was particularly important to our family. We were all travelling together to celebrate two 40th birthdays, including my husband's, as well as my mother's birthday — my mother being the disabled member of our party.
Instead of being able to simply look forward to a very special family celebration, we were left dealing with unnecessary stress, uncertainty and additional costs surrounding basic accessibility requirements.
We find it extremely difficult to understand how a room can be confirmed as available before booking, become unavailable afterwards, and then become available again only when an additional €512 payment is requested.
We also believe that guests should be able to clearly understand what accessible accommodation is available before committing to a holiday and, importantly, whether there will be any additional cost involved.
After our previous experience and now this, we are extremely disappointed.
Accessibility should not be treated as a luxury upgrade. For a disabled guest, appropriate accessible accommodation is a necessity.
We hope Aqualuz takes this feedback seriously and reviews its procedures for dealing with disabled guests, accessibility requests and customer communication.
Nobody should have to go through this level of stress simply to ensure that a disabled family member has suitable accommodation.
We would strongly encourage anyone with accessibility requirements to get everything confirmed in writing directly with the hotel before booking, and to make absolutely certain that any accessible room is formally secured rather than relying on verbal assurances.
For us, what should have been a very special family celebration became overshadowed by an issue that we had taken every possible step to prevent.
A very disappointing experience, particularly given that we had specifically checked the accessibility arrangements before booking and had already experienced problems with Aqualuz previously.
Overall disappointing for the price of the hotel. At best a 3 star, 6/10 experience. The pros are it is about 7 mins walk from lagos centre and the pool area is large with plenty of sun loungers. However overall the rooms are dated, cleanliness is questionable. We stayed 10 nights our sheets were never changed in this time,soap never replaced, floors weren't swept. Literally only remade beds and gave us fresh towels. Breakfast was terrible. Stale croissants/ pastries, basics for hot food. Also they offer 24 hour room service, one morning I wasn't feeling well so didnt go to breakfast, I rang and asked for a coffee to my room, reception said no problem and transferred me to the kitchen where I was told this was not possible. Dont advertise a service if you don't do it. Overall disappointing experience.
I rarely leave negative reviews, but after paying nearly $600/night and flying from Canada with my family, I feel others should know what to expect. The biggest issue started at check-in. We were told the hotel had a system outage and could not provide room keys. We were promised it would be fixed within 12 hours. Four nights later, it was never resolved. Every time we needed access to our room, we had to find a staff member to escort us. As occupancy increased, waits became longer. There was no communication, no updates, and no apology. I contacted the hotel through Expedia Messenger on August 15 and by email. I was promised a response but never received one. Aside from the location, this is not a 4-star experience. Breakfast pastries were not fresh, coffee came from machines and tasted poor, and there was no fresh brewed coffee. The pool area was dirty, with bird droppings on sunbeds and tables every morning. We often had to clean them ourselves. The pool also had debris and Band-Aids floating in it. We booked a Premium Suite with Pool View. The master bedroom was beside the corridor, making it extremely noisy at night and early morning. The room lacked basic amenities such as tissue boxes and hooks for jackets. On one occasion, three towels delivered to our room were dirty. Staff training was inconsistent. A bartender named Diago was particularly rude and unhelpful. When I asked for a wine opener, he lectured me about bringing wine purchased outside the hotel. Later, when I ordered pizza for my children, he informed me that only cash was accepted and offered no assistance, leaving us without the meal. Overall, poor cleanliness, poor communication, poor service, and no follow-up to complaints. Definitely not worth the price and not deserving of its 4-star rating.
The location is good as a short walk into the town. Rooms are very basic and clean. Beds are uncomfortable. The pool area is ok but is not very well looked after and needs some maintenance. The beds under the trees have bird poo and ants over them. Some staff are friendly and helpful but some just stand around doing nothing. There is just one restaurant by the pool which serves all the meals. The tables are sticky and there isn’t enough for breakfast. The restaurant inside is not used. The room only gets cleaned about 5pm. Our key card didn’t work for 3 days on arrival had to be escorted to room every time. Overall ok but feels like more could have been done to make the hotel much better. Feels like was once nice but now the staff are not bothered.
