Best Santa Maria Spa Hotels

The best hotel in the whole island of Sal, except for Riu, is Hilton. Unfortunately, there is no Riu at the time of booking, but Hilton is very new, the decoration is very beautiful, and the facilities in the room are very modern. The hotel swimming pool is very large, the beach is outside, the greening is very good, the photo is beautiful, but the room is a little far from the beach, only half of the sea view room.

Can’t complain! Was a good beautiful hotel with plenty of food and drinks for all guests! Very easy to get there from the airport and everyone speaks English if you don’t speak the native language or similar. Most requests are done via their handy app which is easy to navigate and all inclusive is true to the name! You only pay for anything extra such as treatments in the Spa or items from the shop located on site otherwise everything else is included in the cost of your stay! I would have preferred more options for the 24hr “snack/food option” but this was only used out of hours so not many times for me.

Thanks to everybody at the hotel for a wonderful 10 days. really could not fault it - quite near the main town -nice friendly little Portuguese bar nearby - and shops - we had B+B which was perfect. good pool for adults and kids alike. No sunbed wars thankully :-) Santa Maria is certainly more vibrant than when we went 5 years ago - Highly recommend this hotel as a good base to explore.

The Funana overall is a great holiday experience but there was a few small areas for concern. We flew from Manchester to Sal on 3rd February, getting through the airport was pretty easy, when we arrived in at Sal airport my girlfriend (Slovakian) and I (UK national) had zero issues passing through security, the coach ride was about 30 mins, check in was done quickly and efficiently. We were given keys to room 6009, which was about a minutes walk to the pool, i managed to lose a key card in the first 10 minutes but the hotel were happy to provide a replacement (it was found as we packed to leave so no issues) The hotel is quite spread out with the main restaurant close to the reception, the communal areas are kept clean and are well maintained. There is the main restaurant and a snack one(which doubles up as bookable restaurant it was called the Mambana which is available from mid morning, We booked the following restaurants Mandalay Mambana Kulinarium (this was by far the best) All 3 were good but the Mandalay was a little bit disappointing compared to the others. The main restaurant has a wide variety of food to suit everyone, there were very few days when I felt like there wasn't anything i fancied.. the staff that worked in all the restaurants were pleasant to talk to and were very attentive (they need to be singled out for praise) Now back to the room, it was clean and tidy but there were cosmetic and maintenance issues with 6009 that do need to be resolved as for me it was frustrating, the shower tray had cracks in it so needs to be replaced, there was a bracket to stop the shower door opening outwards but this was poorly installed and you could see wear and tear issues with the curtains.. but the bed was so comfortable and the room naturally cool we never needed to use the ceiling fan. We did find that there were no blankets in the room and after excessive sun we felt cold at night, it took 2 requests and a visit to reception to fix this but its a minor issue. The main pools were sun traps perfectly placed for getting a decent tan, with a bar central to them both on two occasions the barside pool was closed because cretins don't know how to use a toilet but it was closed off and resolved overnight. Drinks were easily obtainable which a decent choice for everyone. The beach is about 5-10 mins walk from the hotel but wasn't never and issue as at the end there was a bar and sunbeds, no toilets though. I also used the spa for a massage and it was well priced and they were very professional. On the Friday night between the CABO Verde and Funana there is an area where they have either the Neon or White Party, we visited the White Party and it was very good, great atmosphere, good music and fun for all the family (I would highly recommend going) Santa Maria is about 30 minutes walk by road or about an hour on the beach, i preferred the beach route but each to their own, you do see people selling excursions or bits and pieces in the

So after having 2 villas booked for over a year the day before we fly out we get an email to say we no longer have the villas we paid for but have all been split over a few rooms. So my sister and her family of 4 and myself and my parents we a family of 7. So we get to the hotel and are told that myself the family of 7 are in a 1 bed family room obviously we wouldn’t fit so eventually we got split into 3x 1 bedroom rooms. Obviously not great i was split from hubby and 2 of my boys having to run back and forth with toiletries but hey ho we managed. Our rooms were ok i was eaten alive by mosquitoes 🦟 and had to get antibiotics but i was the only one out of the family of 11. To be fair the rooms were near everything we were close to the pools and buffet restaurants. The kids loved the pools and we made the best of what was a not great start. Most of the staff were amazing and done anything for you. I did book a year ago a cake and the restaurant to be told nope it hasn’t been done and that they couldn’t fit us in anywhere because everything was full. The restaurant booking system was a faff but we were lucky to be given the VIP because of the inconvenience of no longer having our villas. We loved the bikini beach even though food was a 2 hour wait and didn’t have a lot on the menu as ran out it was still the best place to eat. We also loved the Italian restaurant :-) So after 3 days we were told we could have our villas we were ao happy to get what we paid for and be together as a family. We moved and they brought our bags to us eventually settled in and the kids loved it right on the beach front small pool it was great. We were able to order room service as vips and it was hit and miss but we wouldn’t use again as had maggots in our breakfast 🤮 the drains with sewage overflowed twice while we were there to but by then we could only laugh and drink 😂 NO STRESS 😎 So all in all i wouldn’t go back but after everything and believe me ive not listed everything we actually had a great time. The staff well most were so friendly, food was ok drinks were good and the pools were fine too. Also wanted to say that apparently there was a system muck up that made our villas not available and i did feel for the staff as it wasn’t there fault and alot of errors happened the week before xmas. We arrived xmas day

Ignore the poor reviews . The people who wrote them don’t have their eyes open . Firstly the buffet is so good that we don’t want to book the a la carte restaurants for fear of missing something. We are choosy about food ,don’t eat ready meals, takeaways or upf I am vegetarian or pescatarian , don’t like labels and am into whole and natural foods .,The choice is amazing , fresh fruit, shakes eggs anyway plus , breads galore, desserts plus , fish +++. Ok you get the picture. The staff are wonderful, nothing is too much trouble and there is always a smile .The caffee bar has cakes all day long and snacks at lunchtime and will make any coffee you like - I’ve just had a super soya milk frappe . The rooms are fine,spacious and comfortable,cleaned spotlessly each day and…no dust. Ok there may be a mark on the paint here and there . Big deal ! Any fault reported has been dealt with,only minor things ,the air con is fine but not needed much. It puts other all inclusives we have been to in the shade . There is always somewhere to sit,in or out of the sun Plenty of room on the beach,just ignore the tour sellers or be firm and they don’t follow you . No lookee lookee men !To be quite honest we haven’t been to the pool yet as we are not big sunbathing fans , that is for another day. Neither do we know what’s around here,have been catching up on writing, reading and relaxing.But the food … 11/10 Staff 11/10 Have already booked for next year ! Thanks to all staff for your welcome and hard work! We have already booked for next year