Hotel Sao Jorge Garden

Muito limpo

Velas is such a sweet little town that charms you the moment you arrive. This hotel could not be in a better location. Our room overlooked the sea. Ocean waves and palm trees look beautiful in any weather. The staff were very welcoming and friendly. The room and facilities completely exceeded our expectations. The breakfast spread was a thing of beauty! We were there for Valentines Day and the hotel had decorated the breakfast room for the occasion. I hope to stay here again soon.

The hotel organizes wedding parties on its grounds without any restriction on time and noise. So if you stay in this hotel you can end up with super loud wedding party lasting all night right under your windows. The management just makes money and does not care about the guests living in the hotel. This is unacceptable, I’ve never seen such lack of respect to hotel guests in any other hotel in the world before (and I’ve travelled a lot!). Avoid this hotel.

4 day stay to do walks across St Jorge. Staff were excellent and hotel first class. Great breakfast and excellent pool and garden area. Beautiful afternoons resting by the pool and looking out over the ocean and sunset. Good location to walk through Velos township for cafes and restaurants.

I stayed 3 nights in this hotel as part of a group. The location on the coast, opposite Pico, is good, the (unheated) pool set in gardens looks nice. The rooms are small but adequate. It seems that the hotel is divided into two parts: those that have views over the pool, with coffee/tea facilities and those which don't (have views of the back of the restaurant and a bit of garden with some building works on the wall)! You can tell I was in the latter! This hotel prides itself on its breakfasts, with lots of home-baked goods (cakes, pies, pastries, biscuits). Unfortunately that is not much good if you can't eat gluten. It does not offer dinner in the evening. Since our group trip involved full board, we were sent to a pretty basic cafe up the road with formica tables and a very limited menu (vegetable soup, then grilled tuna or meat, then desert - which included tinned fruit salad one night). We had the same offer for 3 nights! The fish/meat was cooked freshly and well, at least! One big downside was that I slept with my window open rather than using aircon and got many mosquito bites - the only place this happened in the Azores. Maybe to do with the garden. Two things really annoyed me/us. On the last morning we were leaving early, as was another larger party. Our guide negotiated at length to get us a partial breakfast (excluding cooked items) before we left. We were told this would be in reception. Again, since I can't eat baked goods there was further negotiation to get me an apple and an orange set aside, as a special favour. When we arrived at 6.30 that morning, there had been dry sliced bread, sliced cheese and ham and coffee. I say 'there had been' because the previous group had eaten most of it (see picture). There was about 1 cm of milk left a jug to go with the remains of the coffee for our group of 9 and, of course, no fruit for me. That was very poor given that both the ferry and the flight out of Sao Jorge leave early so guests must regularly need to leave before breakfast opens at 7.30 am. The final insult was that I went to take my extra supplies of cheese/ham (because I couldn't eat much of their food) out of the room fridge when I left, only to find that it was warm. The fridge had been unplugged and the plug tucked behind the bin. This is a hotel with notices, if you know what I mean. There was a notice on the fridge whose English section said ' This refrigerator is for your use and is empty. If you wish to fill with any of these items, please contact directly the reception or ask for the room-service.' 'These items', was not explained/specified. So why unplug it if it is for my use? My food was ruined.

There's not much choice in Velas or even in the whole island and this hotel is most probably one of the best choices. I was here 25 years ago and came back now in 2023 and it's still an excellent choice. The garden with the swimming pool and the amazing views to Pico is fabulous. Rooms are in good shape and are spacious. The breakfast was one of the best in Azores, varied and complete. The room price is a bit expensive but the ratio quality-price is still interesting. I hope I don't need to wait another 25 years to come back again...