We enjoyed a week long stay at the hotel booked at the last minute with Travel Republic. The reviews on this site were reasonable and price was attractive too.

Overall, we found the hotel pleasant and acceptable for the money. There was good choice of food for both breakfast and dinner. A selection from a fish meal and another (eg. beef Stroganof) and spagetti Bolognese was available on daily basis. As the food is served as a buffet, you can go back and front and hence never go hungry.

The hotel surrouning are quite beautiful. The pool is well maintained, so are the gardens that are ancompassed with palm trees. There is a short boarded walk to the beach. Quite special, as there are no other hotels like this (at this price point). On balance, however, the hotel would benefit with a bif of face lift. It is mainly a painted concrete structure with a bit unusual "airy" design.

Yes, I have to agree that the distance from both Albufeira and Villamora is beyond walking. Hiring a car at the airport and getting a good map (!) is recommended. Be careful on the roads and don't always trust the sign posts, as you might find them a bit confussing.

If you are looking at treating yourself for a nice evening I'd recommend a restaurant called Piri Piri that is a part of a Sheraton Pine Cliffs complex that is about a couple of miles away on the way to Albufeira.

Stayed at the Alfamar from the 3/9/07 till the 13/9/07.
Have to say we really enjoyed the hotel on the whole.
There are a few minor gripes but not to much of a problem.
First of all, you will need a car if you stay at this hotel as it is a little bit out of the way situated between Vilamoura and Alburfeira.
We booked a car through a company called Autoeurope which was very reasobable.
The Hotel is also about 20/30 years old but i have to say was spotless.
We actually ended up with a lovely sea view room although had booked an inland view.
Hotel was booked through a company on the net called Travel Republic and got a really good deal.
We found the food to be a really good standard but you had to go in early for your meal early of you would be in a long queue either for breakfast of evening meal ( 8am-9am) was ok in the morning and 8pm till 8.30pm for the evening meal.
Hotel only 100 yards from the beach with lawns and Palm trees leading to entrance of beach.
Drinks were reasonable even for a hotel and were only slightly more expensive than a bar at the end of the drive to the Hotel called the Beer garden (we went there a few nights as a change from the hotel).
This is the sort of hotel to go to if you are in need of a chill out .
would go back again if any special deals came up.

The Algarve Garden Apartments are part of the Alfamar Hotel Property. As such it was hard to find previous reviews of the place. The taxi driver had no grasp of English which made it slightly terrifying for us as had I not found out through a very vague review that it was located in the grounds of the Alfamar we would have no clue that he actually was taking us to the right place, as he had to converse with somebody else on the radio as it was.

The apartments are nice enough but very simple and plain. Small kitchenette with stove top/hob but no oven. Medium size fridge and freezer, pots, pans, toaster, kettle and coffee machine which was a nice addition. It made for a good jug for us to serve our homemade Sangria in! The bathroom is adequate but nothing flash, shower over bath, toilet, bidet and wash basin. The bedroom is home to 2 single beds which are fine but not overly comfortable. If you are in a party of three as we were the 3rd bed is actually the sofa bed downstairs in the living area. We didn't like the idea of this so took the trundle bed under the sofa up to the bedroom and had 3 single beds squished into the one room which was fine but meant we couldnt open the door to the upstairs balcony. There is a fan in the room which was nice in the heat as there is no aircon and there was plenty of cupboard space. We overheard some guests of the hotel complaining that there was only one mirror in the bathroom, we had one in the bathroom, one in the living room and a full length one in the bedroom too which was nice.

The housekeeping staff are good, make the beds each day, change the towels and one even washed our dishes one day! Beware tho you do not get washing up liquid provided and will have to buy this at the resort shop.

Location was fantastic. A short walk through the hotel and down across the grounds lead you right on to the beach. One you get tired of having no shade and being covered in sand you can move back up to the hotel pool area which is great. Although the sun loungers go very early on in the morning so good luck in getting one in the afternoon. There are few restaurants in the immediate area though and their menus are basic. The resort shop is ok, the cafe across the road from the entrance is lovely, the owner or manager, not sure which was a lovely lady who always gave us a free sweet each or didn't charge us for one piece of cake - which is by far the best cake I have ever tasted! If you walk past the cafe down the side of the buildings there is another shop which is smaller than the other but at least has some different things to choose from which is nice if you are there for a stretch such as 10 days as we were.

About a 20-30 minute walk or a 5-10min bus ride takes you into Acoteias where there is a fantastic restaurant called Restaurant O Antonio, we returned there the food is so lovely, if you love seafood. The prawns in the Algarve are amazing, the non seafood menu is ok but not fantastic. Albufeira is about another 10 mins away by bus or car and is worth a look for shopping etc and there are plenty of restaurants to choose from but we found it a bit too far away to go for dinner each night as the buses didn't come back very late.

If you walk down the beach for about 30-40 minutes you will get to Villamoura where there are lots of restaurants, even Chinese and Thai and French. We found this a better alternative as it was nice to walk down in the late afternoon and stroll back after a nice meal and see the sun set around 9pm. We were in Portugal for a relaxing holiday so didn't try the clubs or bars at all.

The hotel has live entertainment very night and also lots of childrens activities which would be great for families with kids.

Overall this holiday was great, loved Portugal and after the intial shock of having the 3rd bed in the living area and sorting out a solution the accommodation was fine for us.

We stopped at the self-catering apartments which are owned by, and within the grounds of, the 'LTI Alfamar Beach and Sports Resort' hotel. They are however independently known as the 'Algarve Garden' apartments. A bit confusing and you may find it easier to advise taxi drivers that you are stopping at the Alfamar as this is where you need to check in anyway.

The apartments themselves are two blocks of flats with a number of apartments on each floor. They are situated in the beautiful gardens that surround the hotel which are full of palm trees and colourful flowers. The grounds are well looked after and very green compared to the dry arid landscape of most of Portugal! There is a controlled sprinkler system that kicks in every night so watch out when walking around that you don't get a sudden surprise!

Unfortunately though the apartments themselves are quite basic so do not expect to be able to undertake much self catering in them! There were only 2 electric hobs- no oven or microwave and the 'preparation' space is also limited. However, they are well kept and clean with a large fridge and small freezer section (although I'm not sure how you could cook frozen food!- we only used it to make ice cubes!). There are however enough pots/ utensils to get by and certainly there was enough for us to have breakfast and the odd lunch etc.

The apartments are also kept very clean. The maids came in every day with clean towels and cleaned the bathroom and made the beds.

You may have been led to believe from photographs of the site that the self catering apartments are little bungalows situation in the gardens and although there are numerous beautiful bungalows, most of these seem to be personally owed/ rented by Portuguese families rather than places that you can rent for a holiday. Most English appeared to be placed in the apartment blocks that we were located in, so please do bear this in mind and do not have great expectations of staying in a pretty little bungalow!

However one of the benefits of the apartments that as they are part of the Alfamar hotel you can use all the hotel's facilities. There is a beautiful pool surrounded with free sun lounges and parasols. There is also a vast grassed area, shaded with palm trees and dotted with more free sun lounges and parasols. Even better is that this is one of the only hotels on the Algarve coast that has direct access to the beach. Straight at the back of the hotel is a little wooden walkway that leads you down to the gorgeous sands of Praia De Falesia. The beach is backed by orange sand cliffs and there is a lovely sea breeze that takes the edge of that hot Portuguese sun! There are also sun lounges and parasols to hire on the beach but we found it cheaper to buy our own parasol and set up a little further down the beach. It is a quiet family beach where you can enjoy the sea and sand without too much disturbance from noisy kids and families!

The hotel also has a bar with entertainment in the evening, although I must add that the entertainment is more like something from Phoenix Nights- a bit cheesy and involves Portuguese cabaret acts singing English songs! But it helped pass the night away.

There is also a Restaurant on site and it costs 21 euros per person to eat here. It was a buffet self service and although it was quite varied in the choice and there was always salad and deserts available, we found a much nicer and cheaper way to eat was at the little local restaurant just situated on the road at the entrance to the hotel. It was only 20 euros in total for an absolutely wonderful, delicious meal and drinks. It was called Acetoas. We would definitely recommend it.

I must also advise though that the area that the hotel is located in is a little removed from any main town or social area if you do not have a car. Out of the hotel is a 'main' road that has the restaurant mentioned above as well as two other cafes and a small supermarket (although there is also a supermarket on site). Essentially there is not much that much to do at night time apart from go to the hotel bar or catch a taxi into Albufeira (but please also bear in mind that we were told on a Saturday night at 10.00 pm that a taxi would not come out at this time of night due to how busy the taxis are and how far out of town the hotel is!). The bus service in and out of this area is also not brilliant. The buses are once an hour and start in the morning at about 8.00 am and finish and 10.30 am and then start again at 1.30pm and finish at 7.00 pm and on one occasion one bus failed to arrive. You need to bear this in mind if you are planning a day out somewhere as the buses from even the main bus station in Albuferia also tended to finish at 10.30am and not start again till the afternoon.

Although the above sounds quite negtative we did however have a lovely holiday. This hotel is an ideal place for couples that need a relaxing beach holiday by the pool where they are not too bothered about partying every night and going too far.