Praia do Canal Nature Retreat - Small Luxury Hotels of the World

The Praia is wonderful, it was our second visit and we look forward to coming again. The rooms are incredibly well equipped and the staff are very polite and attentive. The only drawbacks are the restaurant which is good but not five star, and the approach roads which are a little like a rally. However, it is well worth the effort just for breakfast!

Upon arrival, you think you are in for a very special treat. The facilities are absolutely beautiful, and in a beautiful setting. The design, aesthetic, furniture, choices, and overall architecture are truly world-class. You are in an expensive nature, reserve with modern facilities, all blended into each other. This natural and aesthetic beauty are an illusion shattered by the extraordinarily poor service and untrained team, especially when it comes to F&B. Countless examples: - people who barely speak English - senior staff who delegate every request to junior staff, while not training them - no consistency across really anything: cutlery in tables, or not; coffee coming warm, scalding or cool; wait staff letting you sit at table for long stretches with no attention - dinner service was appallingly slow, all with a clown car of a staff shuffling back and forth to the kitchen, seeming to know what they are doing, but actually do not. A simple dinner that should’ve taken an hour to an hour and a half took two hours and 45 minutes, including several requests back to the kitchen for mistakes made. The worst was walking back into the lobby after an excursion to see a pile of dirty towels sitting right across from the front desk, and a manager and two team members doing nothing about it. A team member even asked her manager maybe we should move these and the manager made up some excuses about needing to wait for someone else to do it. Clearly, all of this could be solved with a new general manager, who has some experience in luxury hotels, and what the expectations are for service range of France. The sad part is that the property is so beautiful and so well thought through, and the same people who made that decision made a decision to have a team that really has no idea what it’s doing. I hope they fix it tons of potential here if they do.

Terrible would not recommend this place to anyone. We wanted to like this place... but could not leave fast enough. It had no soul and is missing something... The food is not good and would not go back again. dinner was not edible was told only charged for drinks and only signed bill for drinks

Our stay was short but powerful, the hotel has an incredible architecture, a unique and stunning design, Marcelo always accompanied us showing us the whole hotel and explaining all the design and architecture that almost seemed to have been him making the hotel, always with class and ready for anything we needed, thank you Marcelo for making our stay one of the best we have ever had, he is the essence of the hotel you can see that he loves the place where he works. The whole team was fantastic, from the front office to the restaurant and housekeeping. The Spa could do with a bit of a facelift - good staff but the interpersonal relationship needs to improve. Apart from that, the food is marvellous, congratulations to the other Marcelo, this hotel is well in the hands of the Marcelos. We hope to return soon. Thank you

Laundry sevice ruined my clothes. They agreed to reimburse replacement costs but unfortunately after providing invoices and bank details still no payment, Very unprofessional ! On the plus side the room was clean and bright, although the phone to reception did not work and was not repaired during my 10 day stay A lot of water wasted as the shower took ages to run hot, not very environmentally friendly !