The Vila Gale is a beautiful hotel with a big area, a huge pool, different restaurants and Entertainment Programm. If you speak Portuguese than you will enjoy this hotel a lot - if not then your vacation will be always a little complicated. The hotel sells itself on their website as international, but we were not able to attend anything. It starts with the Menus. You have to scan a QR-Code (you better hope it works) but then you can only use the Portuguese version - every other language is not available. At the reception desk you need to hope that there is someone on duty who speaks English, otherwise you have to use a translator app. This way you also have to communicate in restaurants, bars and in the spa. So nothing is really easy if you have the language barrier. Do not expect to use the entertainment as well. They do not make any announcements in English, still they yell almost for hours into the microphone and the music is so loud that you need to yell at your partner to exchange a word. You have to keep in mind that you are in a different country or basically a different world, because service quality and understanding is not the same as in Europe. At the bar you only get a drink if you yell first, people can let you wait for hours before they even give you any attention and you can truly see that they try to avoid talking to you because they know there is no way of communication. Mostly the guest ignore the rules anyway, they eat inside the pool, attend the restaurants in Bathing suite and even in the a la carte restaurant we saw many people in flip flops and tank top. It might be different in Brazil but still it was uncomfortable. The hotel should decide either to make rules and stick to them or do not make them at all. We tried the Portuguese restaurant and the Mediterranean Restaurant. The second one was amazing, the first one a disappointment. If you do not eat fish, you have no options for a starter (I asked for a started without fish and they gave me squid) and we got our dishes so fast that the dinner was over after 30 minutes. After 4 days we asked for a talk with the hotel manager. And apparently the problem is well known. They tried to make it better and translated us the menu in English… sadly none of the waiters in the restaurant knew about it.. We loved the hotel area and our room, but because there was no day where we didn’t struggle with any service because of the language we were not able to get the full vacation vibes. If you do not have any troubles with that then it’s a beautiful place to stay at, if you do than better look for another place.
57 Reviews