We have just come back from 2 weeks here, we had a great hoilday, hotel & rooms nice & clean & all you wanted for self catering, maids came in 3 times a week, pool & area nice & clean, staff very frindly & helpfull, english T.V channels, we would return to this hotel.

i have been to this resort for 3 years running and i love it. there is a tv (like you want to sit and watch tv on holiday) bathroom, kitchen, dining area and living area. the place is spotless, always cleaned and linen and towels changed often.

the entertainment is good, Pedro loves his kareoke!! and the bar food is brillant if you dont fancy going to the strip

I followed some of the reviews of this hotel closely and decided that based on the bulk of the reviews (which were OK) it was safe to book a last minute easter-break holiday at Choro Mar.

WHAT A MISTAKE.

I cannot beleive that some people actually have gone back to this place, never mind year-on-year.

The apartments were extremely basic (grotty), and extremely old and tired. The apartments were meant to cater for 4-6 adults, but I fail to see how that could happen when there was only linen and crockery for 4, only adequate beds for 4. Not to mention that the "boiler" in the apartment ran out of water after 3 people having short showers, leaving anyone else to shower in cold water.

The apartments were meant to be self-catering, but on the cooker, the owners had disconnected 2 cooking rings (they say to prevent power surges, but I say to lower their costs - and increase restaurant takings), and the other 2 rings were faulty so it took 30 minutes to fry an egg.

The walls between all the apartments are paper thin, and allow you to hear EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) going on in the neighbouring rooms.

The staff on the surface seemed friendly, but every time you visited the bar, they chatted to each other in Portuguese and giggled at each other, barely hiding their contempt for the clientele and obviously taking the piss from their customers. The owners are only interested in making money from the customers, and showed this by only paying attention to the lager-louts who spend heavily at the bar. The final day of our stay showed an influx of even more yobs, who were greeted with open arms by the staff, and were met by a 20cents increase in the price of all drinks at the bar over the previous week's prices to meet the new unsuspecting clients. The "restaurant" food is worse than you would get from a burger van and is over double the price.

The bar area at night is a nightmare as they have 6 large-screen televisions all set to different stations showing football games, most with the sound on, and thay also play loud music over this. We could only tolerate this for a few minutes before noise induced migraines kicked-in

The Mini market is a joke, with almost no stock worth buying, and what stock there was being extortionately priced (e.g.

stayed in chorro mar on a thompson holiday from 14/10/07 to 21/10/07in a 1 bed room apartment chosen thanks to all the reviews it had recieved on different web sites saying how clean it was but we requested a quite no smoking room but got a dirty room in block 2 where someone had certinaly been smoking it was too late to complain that day as reception was closed by the time we checked it over the next morning when we had a bath and wash up the bathroom flooded so we called reception and after a time they sent a young lad who was suposed to be the handy man who said it was a blocked drain and unblocked it and said he would get the cleaners to come up and clean it when we returned 7 hours later it was still the same and when i phoned reception explaining that thier was still foul water lying in the bathroom the receptionist said they could not do anything about it as all the staff had went home

We enjoyed the hotel very much. The staff were great and very very friendly. The entertainment could be better for teenagers. The food was nice and the walk to the strip isn\'t too far. The staff were very helpful and kind, we especially liked manuel and rui. The games they held at the pool were fun and we always had a laugh.

My boyfriend and I stayed at the Choro Mar for a week in September. We stayed in a spacious one bedroom apartment with a pool view. The apartment was very clean and well maintained. The staff were always very friendly and helpful on the complex. There is a pleasant and sociable atmosphere onsite with returning families often reuniting with one another. On our second day we asked whether we could move apartments as the noise from the bar prevented us from getting a restful nights sleep, entertainment can go on until 2am. Our request was dealt with efficiently and we were moved within the hour.

The apartments are a little way out but there is a courtesy bus to two beaches, Oura and Fishermen

We have previously put a review on this website for the Choro Mar after our holiday in 2005 and said we wouldn't stay anywhere else.

Unfortunately, that's now changed.

As I said previously, our children have been returning with us ever since we started going to the Choro Mar in 1997.

The Choro Mar really does appeal to families.

In 2005 we noticed something we didn't like and hoped wouldn't become a trend.

We have had so many fabulous holidays there, we thought things wouldn't happen two years in a row - diffrent times of the year etc, so we returned yet again in 2006.

BIG MISTAKE.

We would always go into the bar for a drink before going out for dinner.

Night after night the apartments bar was full of teenagers and young children-not many (if any) parents with them.

Why?
Because their behaviour had had them barred from nearly every bar/restuarant on the strip!

Now that IS some accomplishment considering how many there actually is!

The parents?
They were out on the strip with their friends, (we saw them) having left their kids with money for pizza from the apartment bar (which WAS delicious!) and drinks.(they told us themselves they had done this.)

Coming back for a few drinks in the apartment bar (after the entertainment had finished-there is only so much karaoke one can take) the young ones would be half sloshed and making a nuisance of themselves either in the bar, or if their parents were there-in the apartment gardens.

The noise was terrible.
The kids were very rude, insulting and at times itimidating and threatening when asked to lower it down.

(My eldest had words with one drunken 17 year old after he insulted and then threatened me.
Luckily my other half hadn't heard anything and to this day knows nothing of it or there would have been murder! )

Staff did so much to try and stop this sort of behaviour (but only Manuel was prepared to call the police - he seemed to be the only one not bothered about upsetting their parents) but ultimately it was down to the parents-who didn't do much at all to be quite honest.

The Choromar also has many permanent residents who were plagued by these kids.

So much so, that in the two weeks we stayed, residents had called the police out on at least 3 occasions to these kids.

It goes without saying that my two never made any friends those two weeks.

And to be honest, once we saw this behaviour of a night was pretty much the "norm", we gave the apartment bar a wide berth.

But getting to sleep of a night was also problematic because of the noise from these kids again.

It was much better when they left, but unfortunately, as they did-more of the same arrived.

We were quite glad to get home to be honest.
We felt that although we were regulars there, because we weren't big drinkers and hadn't come "mob-handed" (only 4 in our party-about 30 all in all in the other) how we felt didn't really matter.

Maybe if we went later in the year (September for instance) it might be like it used to be - but because of school terms, we can't do that.

Last year we went somewhere else and comparing apartments now (we were so used to the Choro Mar after all these years) we can see the Choro Mar, although clean, are tired.

They really need modernising and the kitchens and bathrooms especially, brought up to date with better equipment.

Although I have to say that the Choro Mar is still VERY competitively priced.

In saying that, the area in which it's placed isn't really suitable for us any more either - it's too far out from everything - a real hike and not a nice walk home late evening (we were staying out much later than usual because of what was going on in the apartments bar)if you can't get a taxi (especially past those apartments with the empty shops underneath - opposite the Montechoro park - or the apartments at the bottom of the hill before the crossing by the Felixchoro)

My family and I send our very best wishes to Graca, Manuel, Carlos, Saija, Fred and his Missus (sorry I can't remember your name) and all their children and hope they have continued success.

But I doubt very much if we would ever stay there again.

We have been staying at the Choro Mar for a number of years now. The folks there will go out of there way to ensure you have an enjoyable holiday. Nothing is too much trouble. The staff are more than just staff more like good friends.

The Choro Mar provides everything I would want from a relaxing holiday and if you can't find it Graca will sort it out. There is a gym but it's easy to ignore.

Top recommendation for the best family holiday.

We have just returned from a week in the Choro Mar on our honeymoon with both sets of parents. The hotel was very clean, the apartments were big and spacious.

The staff at the hotel were very very helpful and friendly. We stayed in block 3 of this hotel and virtually had our own pool for the week.

We experienced some noise from privately owned apartments within this hotel and due to them being private the hotel staff could not really say anything to them - it was sorted in the end and we CANNOT say that this spoilt our holiday as it didn't and we are going back next year and booking direct through the hotel.

We have been going to Choromar every year since 1997 and all just love the place! (So much so, that our eldest still comes there with us!)

The staff are really friendly and helpful - no problem cannot be sorted out. You first go there as a client, and leave as a friend. And the staff never, ever forget a name! Marvellous seeing how many people they must see each year!

The facilities are really good too, as are the rooms - spacious, clean and very comfortable.

We don't really eat in the apartments very much (we tend to go down the Strip - Blues Bar 2 is a favourite!) but when we do, we have never had cause to complain. It's always been fresh, hot and plenty of it!

The pools are always clean, not surprising as they get cleaned every single morning.

The entertainment in past years has been good, and it gives you a great opportunity to mingle with fellow holiday makers.

However, this time, the entertainment was poor - unless you enjoy Karaoke.

The only other complaint we have ever had in all the years of holidaying there, was unsupervised teenagers left in the apartment bar of an evening while their parents were obviously off elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, some of them where getting drunk, (a bit of a mystery because the bar staff wouldn't serve them alcohol) causing trouble - or trying to, both inside and outside the apartments.

However, the staff sorted that out too - they don't tolerate that sort of behaviour.

This hasn't put us off, and again this year (2006) we will be returning once more - this time for 3 weeks.

The Choromar is ideal for both families and couples alike. The Staff, husband and wife team Graca and Manuel in particular, work their socks off to ensure you have a wonderful holiday.

We wouldn't think of going anywhere else.