Algarve?

[Vallmo47]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a holiday in May to Algarve? Was recommended to try this part of Portugal but open to suggestions. Heard of a beautiful cave called Benagil cave, worth a day trip possibly so need to be reasonably close to that. Travelling with 2 teenagers and husband. We are quite easy going but don’t want to be TOO far away from everything. Think close to beach, close to restaurants, town centre for evening strolls, able to go on boat trips. Husband prefers all inclusive. Due to him snoring really bad, would prefer to have an apartment style room so we are not all crammed into the same tiny space.
Whenever I search there are simply too many option and I veto many of them due to being far away from town.

Thank you for any suggestions!!

Following with interest, in same predicament.

Benagil is stunning. The caves are really worth a boat or kayak trip.

We have been several times to Salima over the years. There's a lovely holiday village with villas that give you space. Nice restaurants, lovely beach, trips available. Our DC love it. It's a quiet village but beautiful.

Look at Eden Resort. It’s AI and huge apartments. Not on the sea front but they have a shuttle bus regularly to and from Albufeira Old Town or it’s only about €5 taxi.

Thank you so much!! 😊

I'm looking for similar but with toddlers, ideally want separate bedrooms and a kitchenette. I've been looking at four seasons vilamourua and pine cliffs x

We love the Algarve and have been to a number of hotels with teens. I'd particularly recommend Club Med Da Balaia which is in a beautiful location (yet not far from villages you could walk to in the evenings) and all inclusive including an excellent range of family activities and children's clubs. It has an excellent teen club and one of the activities is going on the flying trapeze. The newer Lisboa building has inter connecting rooms. Whilst many guests are french speaking, English is widely spoken.

If money is no object Vila Vita Parc is nice! We only went there for a few days off peak. It is amazing but Da Balaia was more fun and more relaxing as everything was included.

We have been to the Hilton at Vilamoura but I was less keen on that hotel and area.
We also spent a week at a Pestana hotel in Alvor which is on a pleasant beach with a nice evening walk to town but it is fairly basic and does not have activities laid on.
Vilalara Thalassa Hotel (next to Vila Vita Parc and now renamed Vilalara Grand) has beautiful gardens but lacks ambience.
Memmo Baleira near Sagres is pleasant and good value but best for those looking for a peaceful holiday as in a quiet location which was a bit windswept at the time of our visit.

The Algarve is beautiful place to visit and the people we met were very friendly.

We stayed in Vilamoura and it is very much a resort town focusing on tourism and golf (so I wouldn’t recommend it for what you want). The hotel was lovely and as we were B&B we used it as a base.

We hired a car and travelled across the area but public transport is very good.

Western Algarve has a number of surf coves and cool bars, the lighthouse of Cabo de Sao Vicente is the most westerly point (visit for the sunset and hotdogs) and there is the picturesque port of Lagos. However, it can be a little windy.

The Benagil caves are definitely worth visiting, we went via boat from the beach which was quite an exciting experience!

The city of Faro has a small historical centre, with cobbled streets, cathedral and lovely restaurants. My friend stayed in a city self-catering apartment here and loved it.

Portimao is said to be the best place to go on a dolphin-watching boat trip and for overcast days there is the sardine museum!

However there are so many things to visit in the Algarve; the Salt mine (Loulé), Cork factory, along with the many castles and forts along the coast, we visited a number including the Moorish style castle at Silves. There are fantastic walks along the coast and the restaurants we visited were all very good (and reasonably priced). We spent two weeks here and didn’t run out of things to do (in fact there are still quite a few things on our list for next time).

Oooh so many things to look into, thank you everyone!!