King Grand Deluxe Room with Pool View and Gusto Restaurant Review

A few years ago, when one accessed the Hilton homepage, I can remember seeing a pool scene with seemingly no edge to the pool…It looked stunning and that was a picture from the Conrad Algarve apparently which I thereafter always wanted to try and visit someday…It has taken me a few years but that finally happened and I’m glad I went. A lovely country, trip, hotel and region. (especially out of season when the number of people is lower, the temperatures are warm but not stupidly hot and there is more time to enjoy a slower pace of life.

A mostly pictorial review of the very nice and quite reasonably priced Conrad Algarve hotel in a King Grand Deluxe Room with Pool View.

We drove down from Lisbon airport to the Algarve with a rental car and that took about 3 hours on the very nice toll motorway (expensive though at Euro 25 roughly each way for tolls). Because we had a car, we drove to Faro one day to look around and would recommend that for a few hours of exploring and sightseeing as well as the obligatory beach visits (there is a beach not 5 minutes from the hotel using good roads through a new luxury housing development that I would recommend.)

Highly recommended.

We (3 FTers) checked in at the hotel as I have not seen online check-in at this hotel via the app. We did have email correspondence with the hotel before our stay to inform them of our arrival time (just a bit early at around 2 PM instead of the 3 PM officially for this hotel) and to arrange a booking in the hotel’s restaurant ‘Gusto’ which is quite popular and we wanted to try as a highlight of the trip. Check in was fairly quick and the service was outstanding. As we were 3 people checking in together as a group which they knew about in advance, my two friends were upgraded to the same room type I had booked from entry level rooms, which was nice as it meant we were all close together and gave them a nice upgrade. It also ensured one of our group that doesn’t have any meaningful Hilton status, could also have breakfast and Spa access without charge so this was greatly appreciated.

We each had a welcome bottle of wine (red, 750 ml size), a litre of still water and a card in the rooms waiting for us. All of our rooms were facing the pool and had the biggest balconies of the hotel that I could see (outside of the best suite in the hotel).

Service was outstanding by everyone in the hotel with only one or two exceptions, which was during breakfast, where one or two staff were simply okay. The rest of the staff were exemplary in their enthusiasm, friendly helpful demeanour and service. (whether bellboy, valet (we had a lovely S-Class rental car on this trip), lobby bar, house cleaning staff, spa staff or restaurant staff. Some of the best service I’ve experienced without being over the top. Valet parking here is free (imagine that!) and we did tip at the end to the valet for the excellent service in getting the car/parking it and helping with our bags, etc…but that was not expected from the reaction we received (although it was appreciated!)

We used a few of the facilities here but did not try everything as some of the restaurants are closed during certain days in the evenings for example. We did try the lobby bar for drinks and some snacks two days (lovely and quite popular), breakfast in Louro restaurant, a lovely well lit space from natural light and more casual seating. The breakfast selection was very good and the quality of items offered was very good as well. Both days I left rather more full than I had planned and certainly more than I needed! My only critique is that some items were at additional charge and that speciality coffees seemed to take quite a long time to arrive. (but the wait was worth it for the quality and presentation of the coffees, and one did not need to order items from the menu to be very satisfied to be honest as there was a cook to order omelette station as well as fried and scrambled eggs available at no extra cost…)

One evening we ate across the road from the hotel where there is plenty of choice from economical food choices (catering to those missing the UK) to fine dining as well as upmarket shopping at upmarket prices.

On a Saturday evening we ate at Gusto, the main evening restaurant at the Conrad and we as a group of 3 tried the 7 course tasting menu, I took the accompanying wine selection and my colleagues decided to just go for a bottle of wine with the meal. From memory, the 7 course menu is Euro 95 / person and with accompanying wines it is 165 Euro, not inexpensive but well worth it if you do enjoy food and decide to afford it. As one would expect at these prices, the service and food was excellent and without peer. I would highly recommend the wine selection as it complemented the dishes so amazingly well I still can’t believe it. I would definitely partake of this again if I am lucky enough to stay here again in the future. I have included a picture of the menu choices (rather more simply listed than what was described to us) with the accompanying wines listed as well. Pictures of all courses are shown as well with the exception of the finishing petite fours…which I was either too tipsy to remember to take a picture of, or simply needed to get in before my friends had devoured them! Details with the meal were amazing, from the 4 types of salt provided to try the three types of bread with the meal (pumpkin, mushroom and white bread with sea salt, clay infused salt, coconut shell infused salt and one other that fails me right now…as examples of the variety and taste journey you’ll go on)…

The room was lovely, very large, excellent quality and we all really enjoyed them. The bathrooms were generous, and the balconies were massive with lovely views. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. the bottle of Dom was not provided by the hotel! (we always buy a bottle in duty free and bring it with us to celebrate the trip one evening in one of the rooms before heading out and I seem to have captured that in the pictures this time!)

I’ll just mention that both sides of the room have large sliding balcony doors so you can really get some lovely fresh air in the room.

A stunning hotel, great rooms, excellent restaurant and service. We all said that we would come back and loved our time here. Highly recommended.

For even better pictures of the hotel, area and another stay please see uggboy's outstanding review in the Hilton forum thread dedicated to this hotel (post 106).

Safe travels.