Lounge Inn

“A decent guesthouse with some room for improvement”

The Lounge Inn is what it says on the tin: a guesthouse. Literally a place to use as a base to explore Porto offering just the essentials. Let’s start with the location: though not central, the Lounge Inn is a good compromise between distance and cost as prices are very reasonable compared to sim… more

The Lounge Inn is what it says on the tin: a guesthouse. Literally a place to use as a base to explore Porto offering just the essentials. Let’s start with the location: though not central, the Lounge Inn is a good compromise between distance and cost as prices are very reasonable compared to similar, more centrally located properties. There’s a metro station, Marquês, located just 5 minutes away on foot, or you can walk to all the main sights in approx 30 minutes. It’s a pleasant walk down the hill and I’ve actually enjoyed that part. However, at the end of a long day walking, catching the metro offered a very welcome relief to my sore feet! The area around the Lounge Inn is pretty uninspiring: there are a few cafes and a supermarket and that’s it really. Rooms are named after wines (I think!). I stayed in room Rosè on the first floor. Rosè was incredibly tiny with a large double bed, two bedside tables and a clothes rack which served its purpose despite being a bit flimsy. Bathroom is also on the small side, but has everything you need. There’s a very small patio you can get out on with a view on the spire of a nearby church. As nice as it is, the bell tolling every hour is a little annoying. Luckily it stops past 9pm. There’s AC in the room and a VERY tiny TV featuring Portuguese channels only. I don’t mind as I don’t watch TV but surely in this day and age it isn’t too hard to get sat TV with the bare minimum number of international channels? Oddly enough, rooms have no keys as such but the lock/open via a keypad. It’s handy so that you don’t need to remember to bring your keys with you, but it didn’t feel safe (maybe I’m old school!) Now, on the negative sides, on first look the room seemed very clean, but, on closer inspection, I saw many cobwebs and dust on surfaces. There were also 4 spiders and I spotted a couple of small ants and several hairs here and there. It would have helped if the room had been cleaned with a bit more care. The room has no safe and no coffee/tea making facilities. Fine, it’s a guesthouse, however these little touches would have made a huge difference - I had to go grab the only spoon that seemed to be available to eat some yogurt I bought from the store. Bed is a little on the hard side but I don’t mind. The pillows however are not for me - too soft. The real issue in this place is the noise - from the inside. The walls are PAPER THIN and it didn’t help I seemed to have elephants in the room above me stomping their feet at 2am. I’m not kidding when I say it felt like an earthquake in bed. Structurally, the building seems weak and it needs better soundproofing. If you are a light sleeper like me bring some earplugs! Staff seems lovely - I only met a lady who seems to be doing everything from reception duties to cleaning. Sadly, she doesn’t speak any language other than Portuguese. Absolutely not her fault, but you need to have languages if you run a tourist guest house. I speak Italian, English and Spanish and was able to get by with my Spanish. Communication before check-in could be improved: as you need a code to access the building and your room, and the staff is only there until 6pm, it took several messages via WhatsApp before I could get the code. Not sure why this can’t be given straight away with clear instructions via email. In essence, the Lounge Inn is a good place to put your head down, explore Porto and have very little requirements from your accommodation. This would be a really amazing place with just some little extra attention to detail.

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