THIS IS NOT A 5-STAR HOTEL!
When my husband and I arrived at the hotel the lobby was deserted. There was no doorman or bellman to greet and help with our luggage. The huge lobby with worn-out furniture was empty. There was no one at the front desk. Behind the front desk was a board that was taped up. Clearly, these were all uncharacteristic of a 5-star hotel. This is a one-star compared to the 5-star and 4-star hotels we stayed at on another Azores island, Sao Miguel. I thought the taxi dropped us off at the wrong hotel.
A few minutes later, a lady came behind the front desk. She was not dressed in professional attire like what you normally see in nice hotels. To our disappointment, she confirmed that we were at the right hotel. Our room was not ready, and she asked us to bring our luggage ourselves to the storage room, which was dirty and smelly. My husband and I were disappointed with what we had seen so far and were quite nervous about the condition of our room.
The room turned out quite spacious albeit sparse and dated furniture. We were at least relieved that it was clean and had no smell. However, many things malfunctioned - the A/C, toilet flush, coffee machine. We complained about the AC to the front desk. He was not surprised as he said it was a usual occurrence. He said the hotel was full and could not transfer us to another room. He promised to send a fan while he schedules a technician to come. Neither came. Thankfully, the temperature cooled down