Choro Mar Aparthotel

Well, I will start with the good; the staff were very welcoming and friendly, and our apartment was clean and fairly spacious.

Now for the not so good; the place was filled with stag and hen parties so the noise was unbearable. We spent a day at the pool and a group of lads were playing loud music (if you can call it that) all day. Later on a hen group were also playing music over the boys. The staff let this go on and didn't once tell anyone to turn it down or off. The pool area started off clean but guests trashed the area throughout the day and no one seemed to bat an eyelid. The staff must be used to catering to animals. The pool was clean apart from a Green line of algae around the edge which put me off going in it after a brief dip. We avoided spending any more full days at the pool, but the music was a constant and we could see from our balcony the trash left each day.

Every night there would be loud music from the bar which was fair enough, at it was usually (but not always) off by 11:30pm. However, the barbarians that were guests would often be shouting and arguing until all hours. Most nights at around 3am there would be arguments with people stood outside effing and jeffing for up to an hour or so at top volume. At no pointdid we ever hear the staff intervenve which we felt was pretty poor.

In10 nights, we didn't get one decent night's sleep.

Other little niggles included no kitchen towels in the apartment, no toiletries, I found a hair in my bed prior to sleeping in it, and one day the maids didn't come until nearly 6pm but we're were in the middle of getting ready so they offered to return the next day which we agreed to, however they didn't and when werequested fresh towels from reception, we were denied them. We also paid for some washing which cost 9 euros and our whites came back pink.

I have complained but the hotel refused to provide any refund at all. Furthermore, they provided JUSTIFICATION for one group of noisy lads, said I should have checked the washing I paid for (erm, sorry, but I assumed the woman working in the laundrette knew to seperate whites from colours?!) and failed to even acknowledge other minor complaints.

Unless you are an inconsiderate, loud teenager on a hen or stag do and like to live like an animal, I would recommend avoiding these apartments.

my wife and i have been going to the Choro Mar Aparthotel for 5 years now and we cannot speak highly enough of the place.the staff are excellent. any one who complains about the choro mar wants to get a reality check. great place at a reasonable price. we are going back this year and we cant wait.

We have been staying at the Choro Mar for a number of years now. The folks there will go out of there way to ensure you have an enjoyable holiday. Nothing is too much trouble. The staff are more than just staff more like good friends.

I followed some of the reviews of this hotel closely and decided that based on the bulk of the reviews (which were OK) it was safe to book a last minute Easter-break holiday at Choro Mar.

What a mistake. I cannot believe that some people actually have gone back to this place, never mind year-on-year.

The apartments were extremely basic, old and tired. The apartments were meant to cater for 4-6 adults, but I fail to see how that could happen when there was only linen and crockery for 4, only adequate beds for 4. Not to mention that the "boiler" in the apartment ran out of water after 3 people having short showers, leaving anyone else to shower in cold water.

The apartments were meant to be self-catering, but the owners had disconnected 2 cooking rings (they say to prevent power surges), and the other 2 rings were faulty so it took 30 minutes to fry an egg.

The walls between all the apartments are paper thin, and allow you to hear everything going on in the neighbouring rooms.

The staff seemed friendly, but every time you visited the bar, they chatted to each other in Portuguese and giggled at each other. The "restaurant" food is worse than you would get from a burger van and is over double the price.

The bar area at night is a nightmare as they have 6 large-screen televisions all set to different stations showing football games, most with the sound on, and they also play loud music over this. We could only tolerate this for a few minutes before noise induced migraines kicked-in.

The mini-market is a joke, with almost no stock worth buying, and what stock there was being extortionately priced.

The hotel is in the middle of nowhere, and it is a 20 minute walk to the "strip" and at least 40 minutes to the beach.

As for Albufeira itself - what a dump. If you want to sunbathe all day and drink all night, then its the place for you. If however, you want to sight-see, visit cultural sites and find family friendly parks and places then forget it. Walking around the Old-town and the Strip is a nightmare with restaurant hawkers constantly pestering you to visit their establishments, and with street-pedlars trying to sell you cheap watches and sunglasses.

Choro Mar Aparthotel is 10 out of 10