In Lisbon, we stayed at the Tivoli Avenida Liberdade. When I did my initial search, I did not love any of the Marriott, Hilton or Hyatt options available in Lisbon. In most cases, either the location wasn’t optimal, the hotel was old or the benefits weren’t equally applied (Hyatt doesn’t give full Globalist benefits at their Small Luxury Hotels of the World affiliated hotels). As I mentioned in a previous post, I booked our hotel through the American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts program. This entitled us to the following benefits:

• Room upgrade upon arrival, when available at check-in
• Daily breakfast for two people
• Guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout
• Noon check-in, when available
• Complimentary Wi-Fi (When a property includes Wi-Fi in a mandatory resort fee, you’ll receive a daily credit equal to the Wi-Fi cost.)
• $100 Food and Beverage credit

We saved $400 on the booking as my wife had two $200 credits from American Express that I applied to the booking. The cost was about $600 total for three nights and we felt that it was a good value given the location of the hotel close to many of the top tourist sites in Lisbon. There was no resort or destination fee at this hotel.

As I described previously, we arrived around 7am and could not check in that early as the hotel was apparently sold out the night before. We ended up checking in around 1pm and we were upgraded to a Family Room, which in my opinion, was basically a junior suite. It was a larger room with a sleeper sofa.

The bathroom was great as it included a walk-in shower with the controls outside of the shower. This is a feature that all nice hotels should have in my opinion.

We were on the third floor (technically the fourth floor in Europe), which in this case was a good thing. There is a bar on the eighth floor rooftop playing loud music at night and we were low enough to avoid any issues with the noise levels.

We received a very nice welcome amenity of fruit, pastries and port.

Breakfast at this hotel was fantastic. The only negative was that it was fairly crowded as Viking River Cruises was using this hotel as the pre-cruise hotel before busing passengers to Porto for their Douro River cruises, so there was a constant flow of Viking folks during our stay.

Breakfast included a full buffet with eggs, bacon, sausage and the other usual hot items, cold meats, cheeses, smoked salmon, Portuguese pastries, breads, spreads, and a made-to-order omelet bar. Juices, smoothies, and other cold drinks were also available. You could also order espresso-based drinks from a server. I didn’t take pictures at breakfast as there were too many people.

We also ate dinner in the restaurant our first night due to someone oversleeping their dinner reservation. 😊 We weren’t expecting much as it’s just a hotel restaurant, but it was surprisingly good food at a decent value.

One evening, we used the rest of our property credit at the Sky Bar around sunset. It was busy, but we found some seats and had a drink as the sun went down over Lisbon.

While we didn’t use the onsite pool, gym or spa, I did grab a picture of the pool. It was pretty deserted when I stopped by.

We did not need late checkout, but it was offered. We ended up leaving around 9am to drive north. I parked one night in their garage and the cost was €20 for our SUV (€17.50 for regular cars). As we had already used our property credit, I didn’t charge the parking to my room. I ended up paying cash as the parking garage credit card machine wasn’t working.

Ultimately, I recommend this hotel if you have an Amex FHR credit to use and the price is reasonable for your dates. Lisbon has a lot of options, but we both enjoyed this property. The service was good, and the staff were friendly, despite how busy it was during our stay. The location was excellent for walking into the main tourist area, getting an Uber very quickly or accessing the Metro.

Next up: Our day trip to Evora and Sesimbra

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