My room was old furnished with fainted carpet, window screen not tightly closed and leakage in the ceiling. On Friday evening could not visit the terrace and restaurant because space was rented to a private party.
Staff very nice and well trained.

This hotel WAS a great one, but it must have been some time ago. A great Portuguese actress (Beatriz Costa) lived her the later part of her live and that was when movies were still in black & white. The lobby, restaurant and bar are very good and the location is one of the best in the city and you really cant go wrong there. So, why am I rating it a bit low when there is so much going for it? the answer is: the rooms and the extras! Some of my friends did have the luck of staying is better than standard rooms but in my case the room was simply too small for a 5 star hotel, the bathroom likewise (I regret to say that even sitting down on the toilet will be an adventure for some of the "heavier" guests). Then I was surprised to find out that even what should be considered as the complimentary coffee in the room had hefty price tags on it. For the price they charge and the quality of the rooms, it is pushing it!!! Still, this is a very lovely hotel that does need some refurbishing in some areas. There are better in a 1 or 2km range but if you do decide to stay here... you will still be well treated and in a great location.

we arrived at the hotel at about 3. we checked in a reviced our room. my room was about the same size as a carboard box. this room was not even there standard room. it was the next up. we went down stairs to inquary about there spa that they advertise. we where told that they had not spa but they had a sky bar. i told the guy that was on reception that i did not come for the sky bar. i cam casue i was told they had a spa. it is advertied on there dressing gowns there paper and there website.

at night we never got a turn down service. the maids walked in on myself and my cousin with out even knocking. this happened twice. the maids dont leave any clean towls or any shampoo or body wash. this is ridiculase for a 5 star hotel.

we went up to the pool for lunch. we where sitting there for 20 minues and no one came over to us so we left.

beware of the prices in the bar. for a small bottle of water it is 5 euro.
they leave no water at night in your room.

we went down to the reception to change our room cause i dont like small spaces and they gave us another room. when we went into the room there was someone sleeping in it.
we went back down to reception and they said that there could not be anyone in that room. do that think we where lying. that said ow maybe the porter but the bags in there for storage again we told him that no there was someine asleep in the bed.

i would defently not come back to this hotel again. we would have moved hotel but there was no other hotel avable.

We were disappointed by this hotel which we had booked based on its Trip Advisor ratings. It bills itself as a five star but the discounted Internet rates are a tip off that it is past its hey day and needs renovation and better management as the service is very uneven. In fact the hotel is so thronged with tourists, conventioneers and airline crew that the cavernous lobby feels more like a railway station than the lobby of a five star hotel.

We stayed here for three nights on two separate occasions. The first time we arrived early in the morning. We weren’t expecting our room to be ready, but neither did we expect that both the receptionist and porter would be so unfriendly We left our bags and came back at 3:30 PM. We had to wait a long time at reception to get attention (the receptionists chat with each other and also sell cigarettes, act as a concierge, etc.) but our room was ready. The same unfriendly porter from the morning rudely directed us to use a different elevator from him so that we got lost and he ended up having to wait for us which made him even more unfriendly. We then opened the door to find that we had been given a room with a double bed in which someone had just smoked a cigar when our reservation was clearly for a non smoking room with twin beds. By this time, the porter was audibly cursing as we had to go back down to reception to get a new room.

The new room we were allocated was fine and quiet although overlooking the main street of Lisbon. Although the furnishings and fittings were a bit tired, everything worked.

The second time we stayed here the receptionist on duty was a delight. We were upgraded to a junior suite which was huge (although the air-conditioning and hot water didn’t work properly) and he took the time to advise us to sign up for the new (end June 2010) Tivoli frequent stay program (also good at 55,000 other participating hotels around the world). It proved an excellent tip as we got free WIFI access for our room, a free liter of water and we should have received a free English newspaper but this never came. (You get the same deal at every Tivoli in Portugal, so it’s worth signing up, especially as the WIFI rates are so high-- 17 Euros for 24 hours. You can also use the free machines in the business center (they do charge 10 cents a page to print) or pay an hourly WIFI rate. The porter was however inefficient and first had difficulty finding the bag we had left behind five days before and then took 45 minutes to deliver our bags to our room.

The gym is small but has most of what you need and is open 24 hours. We chose not to spend 15 Euros on the buffet breakfast and instead opted to have breakfast at the Bela Ipanema Pastelaria a block down the road from the Tivoli. The Sky Lounge bar is worth an evening drink for the views over Lisbon and the river but you might feel out of place if you’re not hip and trendy. It can take a long time to pay your bill too.

The Tivoli has a great location within easy walking or Metro distance from the old town and was perfectly acceptable for what we paid, but we wouldn’t stay here again as we found it stuffy, pretentious and with very uneven service. The Sofitel two blocks down the road is a better bet if you want good service and more luxury and even costs less than the Tivoli if you sign up for their non refundable two week advance booking rate. (See my review of this hotel.)