Hotel was in a good location, minutes from the subway (a 3 minute walk), right across the street from the Hotel is the Praca dos Touros which has shops, restaurants, a theatre, a nice food court inside(if you want to grab something quick to eat in between touring) and suprisingly a nice grocery store specializing in products from Madeira. If you like Madeira wine, or their famouse sweet bread/food products, then that's the place to indulge. The hotel room was very clean, spacious, the TV had a few English channels i.e BBC, CNN, a sports channel, a few movie channels mainly in Portuguese, or if you got lucky had English subtitles. Breakfast was adequate. Yogurt tasted funny though, but the fruit was fresh, buffet consisted of tasty Portuguese bread rolls, a few trays of sugar-carb foods such as doughnuts, danishes filled with fruit jams or chocolate, cookies (which we avoided) but there was also warm scrambled eggs, wheat crackers, pacquets of butter,honey, phily cream cheese, jams etc, a good assortment of cereales with granola, nuts to mix, and assortment of fresh cheese. The coffee machine was mostly my saviour, which served lattes(galao -in Portuguese), cafe Americano (which is like an espresso), and they had an assortment of teas. The only peculiar food at the buffet was the "hotdogs". I read a review previously, that someone said there were hotdogs at the buffet. I thought the person meant sausages - you know, the little typical breakfast sausages. I didn't think they meant actual hotdogs (some) North Americans eat. Well, I was shocked to find they DID serve hotdogs - Schneider hotdogs. That was hillarious. Why would anyone serve such a disgusting thing for breakfast? The other downside at breakfast were the waitors. They stand around and gawk at the women as if they never seen women before. Come on, who wants to be gawked at during breakfast after seeing those whithered, smelly hotdogs they serve? Ugh...give me a break,lol. All in all, good value for money, location is great, area is reletively safe - it does get quiet at night around 11pm, you can bring children to the hotel, AC adequate but no AC in the hallways so for the drama Kings and Queens, deal with it t'll you get to your room. Also, the reception desk staff could use better customer service especially if they are giving you the wrong directions.. ie. a ferry is NOT the only way to get to the Algarve (lol), you can take a bus or a train - but the bus (evora) is the best way. Took us less than 3 hours to get to Albufeira, Algarve. Don't bother asking this hotel desk for any information, go to the subway and ask the guard there, or better yet, if you see a police officer, ask them. They are friendly, speak some English and know Lisbon by the back of their hand and will give you CORRECT directions.

We stayed here in November 2007 for 2 nights, and then again later that week for one more night. Both rooms were OK. We weren't expecting luxury, nor did we need it, since we only spent a few hours there each day. Both bathrooms were a bit outdated and really small, but other than that, we had no other complaints. The hallway is lined with built-in ashtrays, which points to some heavy smoking days there - and you can smell it.

Lobby is clean, open and personnel is friendly. You get a modest gift basket when you check in.

The location is excellent! Only a block away from a metro station, it allows you to go to most places by train. I say most because Metro only has 4 lines, and to see Belem, for example, you need to jump on a bus. 7 Colinas metro card works in buses and trams, so it's not really an issue.

Anyway, back to the hotel. Internet is 3 euro for an hour or 6 euro for 24 hours.
But by far the best feature of this hotel - bar none - is breakfast. I've had some good breakfasts in hotels before, but this one tops them all.

You have to take the taxi from/to the airport. We had to do it 4 times, and the most we gave the driver was 10 euro, because he was extremely nice and helpful. But the ride was never more than 8 euro (with bags and all), even on weekends. They will charge 1 euro for each bag on top of what the meter says.

When we arrived there for our second stay that week, we arrived early, around 9 am and they gave us a room after only a short wait.

Overall, the proximity to the airport and downtown makes this hotel a good choice. And that breakfast....

Alif is well located with metro, buses and Campo Equino-services excellently located nearby. Despite the fact that the building is only appr. 10 years old it is largely run down: the room carpets are dirty/run down, the lifts are small/slow and the staff is tired, in particular in the breakfast room. The rooms are small and noisy in the street side.

Despite the fact that the price (in the off season) was not very high, I would not recommend - alternatives exist

Best regards,

Jan-Ole Ray, Helsinki

As others have said the location next to Campo Pequeno is perfect in regard to the convenience of being next to the metro stop and supermarket. If only the rooms had fridges it'd be perfect. Breakfast was very good, a great variety of food. I'm a picky eater and found plenty to eat which I liked.

My only complaint would be in regard to the shower. There's no curtain just half a barrier and the floor often ended up soaked.

We took the Aerobus to the hotel which was very easy (just walk toward the bullring after being dropped off and go around the building to the right. Hotel Alif is on the corner of the opposite street. However, we found as others have said that a taxi ride back to the airport was the same price as the Aerobus, so I'd recommend just taking a taxi each way.

While in Lisbon, we did a Sintra-Cascais daytrip with Inside Lisbon and it was so enjoyable!! The places we visited were all very interesting and the pace was perfect. They even dropped everyone off at their hotels upon returning to Lisbon.

I'd highly recommend hearing Fado sung at Canto do Camões. We also ate dinner there and both the food and music were superb! It was really easy to find in Barrio Alto from the Baixa-Chiado metro stop.