Porto Bello Royal

Been here twice now, and it is good. The rooms are spacious, and the pools are clean.
Since my first visit in 2018, the food and drink has gone downhill. The beers and cocktails available tasted very poor.

Had a holiday and family wedding at the hotel, wedding coordinator Margherita was amazing. Very clean hotel, great food in buffet restaurant. Long walk to the room but well lit and good walkways. Only thing they could do better is better food late night (nothing really available after 9.30)

It's OK, but it's not up to the hype. Very average all-inclusive with no USP at all (water park is not a usp as you pay to enter). All pools are in full sunlight for most of the day, very little shade for children or non sun worshipers. Sun loungers are taken very early and limited fixed parasols. Food is the same as most other hotels, breakfast being the best of it. Staff are always polite and talkative 😊. Evening bars are limited and located at the main build. Only 1 small lift for us with 2 buggies and ramps are sporadic at certain levels.

So this is not a 5 star hotel, but of course, I am not expecting Claridges or The Langham, which are both real 5 star hotels. This is an all-inclusive hotel that rates 4 real world stars depending on where you are standing.
The food is great, with loads of variety, and the restaurant staff are great, but a little over stretched. The rooms are great if you are in the newer areas, and ours was very clean. The people who clean the rooms are brilliant and work really hard.
If you venture into the toilets of the main building, you will see how tired parts of the hotel are. A lot of the signage is old and relates to an old layout.
The drinks are good (the bar staff are great), and the themed restaurants work well. It is a little odd that all the restaurants, apart from the main one, have to be booked for lunch or dinner using a website rather than there being perhaps two main non-booked restaurants with other themed restaurants that can only be booked once per stay.
The entertainment needs improvement. The PA used by the guest groups in the main building bar is shocking and ruins what would otherwise be some decent acts. The amphitheatre looks like it was last painted in the 80s, and the blue plastic seats would look at home in a minor league football team stand. Again, the PA was awful, and the bar is a hut. The amphitheatre should not be a part of this hotel.
The gym is diabolical. The equipment is old and poorly maintained, dangerous, and should not be used.
The pools are great and well maintained and not freezing cold.
The snack bar in the swim up area and the gelateria are great, and there's no shortage of hot snacks, fruit, and ice creams.
The thing that also deserves a mention is that the hotel is right under the flight path of planes coming in to land at the airport, which fly over every 15 to 20 minutes.
To sum up, great food, good bars and snacks, tired decor in the older parts, terrible PA, dated amphitheatre, well maintained pools, clean rooms (cleaners are great), overworked staff, and great plane spotting opportunities!

Had a wonderful week hear last month.
The saving sun bed policy is not managed. We were lucky to get a beach sunbeds & noticed a bag was left hanging in the one in front of us & no one turned up to use them all day & the hotel did not remove them.
Also one point the hotel is on the flight path so you will get planes flying over to land was not that bad you did not have to stop a conversation for it. However if you are looking for 100% peace posable not for you.
Also they have weddings hear so our pool area got taken over by a wedding party 🥳 for a couple of day we were there

Only been here for 2 days and don't want to leave, super friendly staff who can't do enough for you. you're only a couple of minutes walk from the beach or aquapark whichever one is more for you. There's different types of food, so there's something for everyone

Lovely hotel, delicious food, friendly staff, amazing pools, great beach!

One negative thing was that the floors in the rooms were not cleaner properly.

Other than that, all perfect!

I’ve spent 13 days from 6 to 18 September at Porto Bello and I absolutely loved it!

* The hotel
The hotel is located in a very picturesque area, just at the sea, so you always have a beautiful view on the sea, mountains, palm trees! The view is absolutely gorgeous!!
The hotel has a lot of pools (I don’t even know how many, but more than 10, for sure) and jacuzzis, so if you are ‘pool person’ it’s definitely your place for you to go!

* Food
There are different thematic restaurants and bars, which I can all recommend.
The food in the main restaurant was always good, plenty of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes. The atmosphere is very friendly and pleasant, the waiters are super nice, fast and friendly (special thanks to Ripon, who was always very friendly, smiling, fast, eager to make all guest feel comfortable and enjoying the food, which made our breakfasts and dinners very pleasant🙏)! The people who welcome you at the restaurant are very friendly and professional as well!
I liked to go to lunch to a Mediterranean restaurant, which is specializing at Greek food with seafood dishes, Greek music and beautiful view at the sea!
There are also 4 restaurants a la carte, including Italian (which was very good and located in a romantic location) and burger project (where I got delicious burgers and a very fast service).

* Activities
In the morning and in the evening there were yoga and stretching at the beach under a beautiful tree, and in the evening almost every day live music with different bands.
The animation people were friendly, especially my favorites Anele and Ntlantla, with whom I had so much fun during the whole stay!
The sports activities I also did - was beach volleyball and tennis.
A great bonus to me was that the canoe and pedal boats are for free (30 minutes) for the guests, so we could add some more cool activities at the beach!

* Bars
The azure snack bar is absolutely necessary to visit, luxury atmosphere, big pool, live music at some days and a very nice bar tender and a person who served food, thank you, guys! I loved the atmosphere there and of course again marvelous view to the sea!
I also liked a lot, that there were many different cocktails and they were served in beautiful glasses in all bars (which for me is important 😃).

* Aqua park
Just a few minutes away from the hotel there is an aqua park with many different waterslides (scary and not 😆) and pools. And this was the first aqua park, where I didn’t have wait in line🙏 it was very pleasant! And for the guest of the hotel it was possible to leave it, had a lunch or do something else at the hotel and then go back at the same day, which I found very practical!

To sum up: It was a very pleasant stay and I would definitely recommend this hotel for people who appreciate esthetic, comfort, quiet atmosphere and relaxing. I would absolutely recommend to book a room with a swim up pool (it has 3 big pools gathered together) and a see view, it is just 1 minute away from the beach and I was just in love with it!

Thank you very much Porto Bello Royal Team ❤️