Cascade Wellness Resort

We almost didn’t come here because of some recent negative reviews, but I am glad we ignored them. This place was wonderful. We had a magical time. We stayed in a 2 bedroom, two bath accommodation with a kitchen and living room with the beach steps from our patio. We also had a rooftop deck. The staff was so friendly and helpful. There is a walking path along the clips. We had access to the heated pool, sauna, and hot tub. The breakfast was great and the bar was nice. I would definitely return to this property.

Last minute booking after vrbo was a disaster. This was a godsend. Amazing location. Cant beat the walk along the cliffs over the Atlantic Huge pool Fantastic breakfast Staff was professional and attentive. Very kind Wonderful staff. I will stay here in the future

We had stayed in this hotel few years ago and very much loved it, hence decided to come back. It was a mistake… The hotel was taken over by Blackstone group. One of the best memories from our first visit was an incredible, kind, warm and thoroughly professional stuff. Their new stuff is totally not trained and also just plain rude… It was tiring to deal with them (with the exclusion of the main restaurant stuff - they were lovely). I mean their reception stuff - unbelievably consistently rude. Golf area is gone and it is just a burnt grass now… Disappointing. Cleaning in the room - constant flaws. They forget to leave a new water bottle in the room or leave you just one (instead of 2 for 2 people). No matter how many times you come to the reception and ask them to pay the attention nothing will change. Etc. etc. Their automatic rotating lobby entry door was broken - abruptly stops in the middle of each cycle. I have seen people badly hurt! My son was injured as well. Yet was a whole week nothing was fixed… Seen many times people were complaining and - nothing was ever done. As about many other issues all around the place as well. A lovely hotel before, but not anymore. You are so much better off staying somewhere else for this money. It is basically a scam - to charge 5* prices for a 3* place that it is now since Blackstone had purchased them. Simply avoid.

Hotel is ideally situated and rooms are spacious however there were logistical problems with my room that made the stay much more difficult mostly that the lights did not work The breakfast is excellent here and it is an easy walk to the old town and the beach But because my lights would not work I would advise visitors to seek other options

My wife and I stayed at the Cascade Wellness Resort for 8 nights as part of a five week trip in southern Portugal and Spain. We paid the equivalent of about 130 Euros per night for a “1 bedroom apartment”, booking 4.5 months in advance through Expedia. We spent considerable time selecting this property from dozens of options for both hotels and short-term rentals throughout the Algarve. We weren’t specifically aiming to stay in Lagos, nor were we set on a hotel/resort (rather than an apartment rental). We selected the Cascade Wellness Resort because it seemed like a higher-end place (nice for the end of our trip) and the price was very competitive. Check-in was quick and easy. We were directed to our apartment, which was in one of the buildings surrounding the main hotel. It had one of the pools directly behind it. While the grounds and main hotel building look like a 4-5 star property, the apartment we occupied was showing its wear, including considerable stained and peeling paint, and a major kick-plate in the kitchen that would fall out every time we opened the dishwasher. There were also minor maintenance issues that hadn’t been attended to. We had light bulbs that did not come on (we assume were burned out); the freezer portion of the refrigerator was so frosted over that we had to completely remove one drawer (for the length of our stay) because it was too difficult to open and close with the accumulated frost. A simple occasional defrosting would have solved this. None of these were fatal to our enjoyment of the stay, but it gave us the sense that the place probably wasn’t what it used to be. The wi-fi was okay, but it didn’t work at all for an extended period one morning, and we got very regular buffering interruptions when streaming video on our laptop in the evening. The room itself was a very good size with a large living room, a reasonably big kitchen, a good size bedroom (with king size bed) and a bathroom split into a separate “toilet room” and “bathtub room” each with its own sink. There was a small patio on the “street” side of the room and a large (but largely useless) enclosed patio area on the pool side. It was unclear what this space was designed for, as it was completely walled off with tall stucco walls (leaving only a view of the walls if you were in it). The hotel grounds are somewhat sprawling with relatively convenient access to the paths and boardwalk area around the cliff edges. Oddly, the route from our building to the Ponta da Piedade/lighthouse area requires you to go way out of your way to avoid a wire fence that seems to serve no purpose (since you have open access to the grounds on both sides of the fence). The pool areas looked nice, although we didn’t use them because we were out exploring in the day and by the late afternoon, it was a bit cool to be sitting by the pool. There was no one staffing the towel cart, so we “borrowed” a couple towels at the beginning of our stay and used them for our various beach days, then returned them at the end of our stay. Pro tip: go out to the pool near closing on your first day there and grab a couple towels. That way you don’t have to deal with the hassle of presenting and collecting your “towel cards”. There is one hot tub, although it didn’t seem very hot when we dipped a finger in, so we didn’t go back. The location is great for the Lagos part of the Algarve. We spent our days all over the Algarve, although we never made it further east than Faro, so we probably missed out on some of the eastern third of the Algarve just because of the location. The only real problem we had were cockroaches. We appreciate that bugs thrive in this type of environment and will find their way indoors, especially on the ground floor where we were. My wife found two cockroaches in the first six days we were there. We dealt with them, and it wasn’t a big deal. However, on the 7th night, she found at least five move, scurrying under the carpet and under the bed around midnight. They move quickly and it took us a while, moving heavy furniture back and forth to trap them (except the one that got away into a crack in the wall, which we tried to stop-up using tissue). The next day we went to the front desk asking to be moved and not to be charged for the previous night. The first fellow we dealt with said there was nothing he could do and we would have to talk to a manager, who wouldn’t be in for at least three more hours. We went back later and talked to a different staff member who said she could move us (but we would have to wait for a manager to discuss compensation). We did get moved on request to an equivalent room and appreciated that. Once the manager arrived and we had a chance to speak to him, he said he was unable to refund the room night – blaming that on the fact we had booked through Expedia. After some very heavy prompting (i.e., not of his own suggestion), he eventually agreed to provide us a free dinner in the buffet restaurant (for two), which we also appreciated. It was unfortunate that the desk staff are not empowered to deal with these issues themselves. It would have left a stronger impression. We also felt that we had to get a bit lucky with the desk staff to get moved to a different room and that we had to twist the manager’s arm (figuratively) to get a “free” dinner as token compensation. The question I always ask myself is “Would I stay here again?”. If I was coming back to the Algarve, I’d almost certainly pick somewhere a bit more central. If I had a specific reason to return to Lagos, I’d be willing to stay at the Cascade Wellness Resort. But it isn’t one of those situations where it would be my first pick by default. Ultimately, this property is not one of the best 5% I’ve ever stayed at, so it isn’t a 5-out-of-5. It isn’t a clear 4/5, but isn’t as “average” as a 3/5. Ultimately, it should score a 3.5/5. Given the muted response to the insect issue, I’ve rounded my rating down to 3.0 rather than up to 4.0.