Club Med da Balaia - Praia Maria Luisa

Food's delicious, Cedric the junior animator was super friendly and funny. Recommend.

An absolutely amazing place. Ideal, all-inclusive resort, with lots to do for both adults and kids.

We had a mixed experience at this hotel. If this review was for Anna, the childcare assistant at the MiniClub, we’d give 5 stars. She was enthusiastic, clearly loved her job, loved kids, and looked after our daughter so well – she was always full of smiles when we came to collect her and had fun all week. The crèche was clean, well run and well organised. Full time childcare was a big part of why we chose this resort, and we were extremely pleased with our experience. Babies and children are extremely well-catered for and we were impressed with the facilities in our room and the excellent “baby corner” in the restaurant. Club Med is a French company, and the resort itself is very French: the vast majority of tourists and staff are French; signs and announcements are in French; and the food caters mainly to French tastes (moules marinières, steak hâché, duck à l’orange, crêpes, chicken provençal etc) This is by no means a complaint – we love France; can speak and understand the language and enjoyed the novelty, but non-native French visitors might feel a little alienated. It did feel like we were on holiday in France, not Portugal! We enjoyed the food at the buffet and the bar was great. At 11.30am there is an “aquagym” which lasts for almost an hour and is incredibly loud. Not very relaxing if you just want to chill at the pool / bar, or if you’re trying to get your baby to nap. We tried escaping to the zen area but could still hear the music blasting. In the end we just thought “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” and just decided to join in! If you’re bothered by noise, try and make yourselves scarce while it’s on! In terms of value for money, we found it expensive. We paid almost £3k for a week all inclusive, with full time childcare, including flights from Ireland. While the hotel and grounds are lovely, and the room was clean and comfortable, in our opinion the standard of the room itself was about a 3*. Now for the two negatives, and they are fairly big. I accidentally left my beach bag containing my phone and airpods when we collected my daughter from crèche on our last day. It took me 30 minutes to realise, and when I went back, it had vanished. The crèche had closed for the day, and while they let me look around (twice), they weren’t exactly falling over themselves trying to help. I then went to reception, and they said it hadn’t been handed in. I went back at 9pm and was told the same. I was pretty upset as we were leaving early the next day and needed my phone to travel, and also as it had all the photos and videos of my daughters first year. I persisted they then checked the back room again, and hey presto, there it was!! Not overly impressed with how that issue was handled. There was also a horrendous mix-up with our flight home the next day. Our flight was scheduled for 11.25, we were collected at 9am, and arrived at the airport at 9.30am, however the flight time was showing as 15:10. After multiple phonecalls with Club Med’s UK number, we were told "the best thing you can do is wait for the 15:10 flight" and given an email address to send a written complaint. No apology, no proactive support or commercial gesture, and no assurance that we were even booked onto the 15:10 flight. We had to call the carrier ourselves, who confirmed we were booked on, and that the schedule had changed 6 weeks previously). What should have been a straightforward transfer, turned into a six-hour ordeal. We had only brought enough formula, food and nappies for the flight home and there was nowhere to buy further supplies. Our toddler went from happy, well rested and fed; to hot, overtired and hungry. Needless to say that made for a challenging, uncomfortable flight home for us, our baby, and those around us on the plane.

Loved every day ,the place supper clean. The go team is so friendly. Welcoming. Loving. Caring. Honest. Friendly. Professional. Special thanks to my beloved More assistant chief of village that took care of me personally. And every need i had was taken care of. The sports team was amazing. Special thanks to myelene the yoga teacher. And tennis team . Thomas the massage was the best. Had the best vacation. Especially for french speaking i encourage you to come.

My stay at this Club was fabulous. I loved the facilities there and the amount of activities that were made possible for us. The GOs were fantastic, especially Lisa. She was respectful, mature, funny and energetic with the teenagers which made the stay much more enjoyable.

1 week in junior club and I was lucky enough to meet Camille she was amazing I went in and made friends she made my week !!

Fantastic holidays, delicious food, nice crowd and plenty of activities to choose from. Club Med delivers above expectations for the perfect family vacation. The G.O team was very friendly and service-minded and made us feel very welcome. Special thanks to Dario from the sports team and Alex at the Mini Club!

An amazing place with amazing people. Beautiful resort with view in Atlantic from my balcony. I loved the different menu's, with variety and excellent taste. The oysters + the octopus+ Portuguese sardines...wow what amazing work they do there. The pastry point was so beautiful every dinner. The children's loved the chocolate cake. If only the chef could give us the recipe, they still talk about it!