YOTEL PORTO

We recently spent three nights at YOTEL Porto and, unfortunately, it was a very disappointing experience overall, with only a few positives. On arrival, we were placed in a room facing the busy flyover dual carriageway beside the hotel, which sounded like a Formula 1 circuit throughout the entire night. Shortly after unpacking, we discovered both the air conditioning and fridge in the room were not functioning and the room felt like a sweaty, stuffy mess. Therefore forcing us to pack everything up again and move to another room on a different floor. While the replacement room thankfully had working air conditioning and was quieter from road noise, we then encountered an even bigger issue. The hotel’s ninth-floor club restaurant, which we were told by staff is privately operated and leased by the hotel, made sleep virtually impossible. On all three nights of our stay, loud music and partying continued well into the early hours, including past 4am on our final night. The ironic thing is that the hotel advertises itself as “soundproof”, but that claim felt completely detached from reality. What makes this worse is the apparent lack of concern from reception staff. Complaints about the noise were met with indifference and no meaningful resolution. It gives the impression that the revenue generated by the venue matters more than the comfort of hotel guests. Our first interaction with the ninth-floor venue was bizarre in itself. We went upstairs around 8pm intending to have food or drinks, only to be met by staff who were completely unwelcoming. Several employees were sitting on their phones, no one acknowledged us properly, fire extinguishers were being used as door stops, and the venue looked disorganised and chaotic despite being almost empty. We were then told it was “fully booked” while only two customers were visibly seated. The breakfast buffet on our second morning was equally disappointing, it had a poor selection, low-quality food, and generally chaotic organisation. This hotel holds a 4-star rating, but in comparison to other 4 star hotels across Europe, this felt far closer to a budget hostel experience. To end the stay on another poor note, the receptionist handling our checkout just so happened to be the same staff member featured prominently in the hotel’s in-room promotional advert portraying the hotel as warm and welcoming. In reality, the experience was the complete opposite. She barely acknowledged us, did not ask how our stay was, avoided eye contact, and came across as entirely disinterested. Basic hospitality and courtesy seemed absent. The only genuinely positive aspect of the stay was the housekeeping staff, who kept the room consistently clean and fresh throughout. Unfortunately, between the broken facilities, relentless noise, poor service, uncomfortable beds, and overall lack of hospitality, this was not an experience we would repeat.

Just spent 4 days in Porto and so pleased that we chose to stay at Yotel. Just a few minutes walk from Trindade station which is just a 25/30 direct Metro to and from the airport and couldn’t be easier with contactless payment available and just over €2 each way. Once settled most of the city is within a 15/20 minute walk and if like us you explore on foot an Uber back from virtually anywhere central is around €5 euros which is very welcome given that the city is on a hill. Our room was spotless and very quiet apart from a bit of road traffic in the morning. Even though our room was directly opposite a lift we didn’t hear any of our neighbours during our entire stay. Only shortcoming was shower door did not seal fully and as a result water leaked into the main bedroom area creating a puddle. Breakfast offered a really good selection of of hot and cold foods and it’s a buffet arrangement. We also visited the bar/restaurant on the 9th floor where service was impeccable and on the Saturday night when fully booked they even managed to squeeze us in for an hour so we could have a couple of drinks. If we return to Porto we would have absolutely no hesitation is staying here again

Hotel is on a main street right in front of the metro and bus stops so you can get around quickly. The hotel itself is nice very well kept and the lifts work great, you get a card to enter into the hotel room that you have to wave over the lock and then it opens. The room is good and spacious the TV doesnt come with HDMI ports but you can chromecast, there are loads of USB ports so you can charge your things and there is also an UK wall plug, something I have never seen in any hotel in the world, thank you so much you didnt have to, but thank you. My wife being english and me portuguese it was lovely to see the two plugs next to each other. There is a rooftop bar which is also very nice. There were fireworks that night that could be visible from the hotel room and the rooftop bar, which was amazing!! The desk clerk Joao is amazing and his customer service is perfect with vast local knowledge. Speak to him for the hotspots and places to go and things to eat. Beatriz on the other hand is moody, not very friendly and often said no to requests that other staff members did easily when asked so we just avoided her. I believe that Joao should give her some training she would benefit greatly from it, considering it seems she is doing a lot of shifts. Only bad part of the trip The canteen staff are all amazing and the food is good, just need some baked beans and you can have a complete English breakfast.

YOTEL Porto Hotel The Yotel Hotel Porto is not what I would call a real hotel. It is more a collection of inadequate, cheaply finished rooms masquerading as a hotel. Maybe it should be called ‘Notel’. I will explain. The hotel’s shtick is that it is modern, colorful with ‘mood lighting’, neon signs and walls, making it out to be a sort of pop art place. However, once you look below the neon ‘hood’ the truth can be seen easily. Maybe the idea of Yotel is to attract the younger guests, but if that is the case, then Yotel is pulling the wool over their eyes too, as they probably do not know real hotels. Many are too young to have known the hotels of old, where there was hospitality. Let’s take a look. The restaurant: Firstly, the restaurant does not operate with the hotel but alongside it. The ambience is non-existent, and the furnishings cheap. You cannot sign your meals on your room number as in a normal hotel, but have to pay cash or by credit card. It would have been good to know this before entering the premises. The waiters seemed to be dressed in their own jeans. Secondly, the a la carte food is nowhere near good enough. The cream of vegetable soup was very bland and tasteless. The Caesar salad is smothered, literally drowning in sauce. The ‘wagyu’ burger was as dry as the desert. The dipping sauce that came with the burger and fries was very spicy and unidentifiable. I asked for ketchup but got a sort of translucent red sauce in packets that purported to be ketchup. Again, cheap. My verdict: Worse than any fast food joint, and definitely not worth the expense. The difference between lousy food and good food is the care that goes into making it. Here there was no care. The Room: I have not seen such an inadequate ‘room’ in all my fifty years in the hotel industry, managing ‘real’ hotels. Again, the ‘mood lighting’ does not cover the fact that the rooms look decidedly cheap. There are no bedside tables, so nowhere to place your reading glasses, book or water glass for the night. The open clothes hanger rod has five hangers. There is a place under the suitcase shelf for shoes, but only two cupboard shelves for clothes. Both of those two shelves are occupied, one by a spare pillow and the other by a hot water kettle. If you like living out of your suitcase then the room will suit you perfectly. You cannot swing a dead cat in the room without hitting the walls, and in our room there was a completely useless nook where an armchair was thrown in to make it look better. I found it useful to stow my suitcases so that our clothes could be accessible. The shower head is not powerful enough. There is no hook or shelf on which to hang your towel for use after a shower, so you have to exit the shower, and get a cold blast, to get to the towel. There is enough space to place a towel bar high up on the wall opposite the shower and I wondered why this was not supplied. At least the towels were a decent size. There is also seepage under the shower door to the wash basin area. There is no privacy whatsoever in which to dress after drying yourself. While the desk is adequate, there is only a short stool on which to sit while working. Not great for a healthy back. I requested a chair which was brought to our room. There is no bin under the desk, only one in the room under the sink between the WC and the shower room, and another in the WC. The toilet paper and tissues are probably the cheapest out there, and feel more like sandpaper. On our last day, while packing to depart, a large cockroach scrambled onto the bed and then disappeared behind the ironing board nook…..not a great goodbye. The cleaning service: Only once was our room serviced before 3 or 4 p.m. Sadly, cheap brands such as Yotel have infected the hospitality industry and transformed it into a real estate industry rather than a hotel industry in the true sense of the word. They are solely in business to make money while forgetting the ‘hospitality’ part of the business. Hotels, even the cheap brands, are supposed to afford the guest a good experience, and value for money. Obviously, this is not high on the Yotel Porto’s list of targets. Again, you might say that the social media marks are high, but that is misleading, as I explained. It is a ‘heads in beds’ operation designed to take as much from the customer while giving the customer as little as possible.

Hi, The hotel was new, clean and comfortable. The staff was friendly.We stayed for five days.Everything was fine except for a small adjustment from the end of the holiday. The key card stopped working, breakfast was paid in advance but it was not known at the restaurant. The city taxes were paid on the day of arrival but it was settled on the day of departure. I still recommend the hotel. Very good and good atmosphere