Santa Barbara Eco Beach Resort

Amazing. Service is great. 10/10

Modern masterpiece on the north-shore of the Azores. Corksided bungalow style rooms - looks like it came straight out of Dwell magazine! Rooms are well appointed with a kitchenette and coffee! We had an amazing walk out to a pool for our room. Food at the restaurant was not as memorable as our meal at the local beach bar, Tukutula. There is a lot of private seating to enjoy the view of the beach below and you can walk down the hill to enjoy the beach. (waves were too aggressive for wading in the water) One unique aspect was the hotel provided us with a cell phone that help us communicate reservations, weather, and recommendations for daily activities!

We stayed one night in the Blue & Green Villa with private plunge pool. Beautiful property and incredible setting — but at €720 for one night, the experience was quite underwhelming, mainly because the temperature of the private plunge pool was not maintained so unless you’re getting primo sun round the clock (which is rare in sao miguel), the private pool became more of a very attractive decorative water feature. 👍 The GOOD * Gorgeous location — beautiful beach and stunning ocean views. * Beautiful resort & villa — the property itself is really well designed and feels special. * Excellent breakfast — genuinely one of the highlights. Great selection. * Breakfast staff were wonderful — warm, friendly and welcoming. * Fantastic beach — although it needs better cleaning; we found sharp pieces of plastic on the sand. 👎 The NOT SO GOOD * 🥶 Private plunge pool: freezing cold. Beautiful to look at, practically impossible to use. * ♨️ Indoor “heated” pool: apparently maintained at around 40°C. That’s less swimming pool and more giant hot tub. * 🧊 Main outdoor pool: cold again * Some of the staff were also less welcoming than expected, with a few interactions coming across as having an attitude. This wasn’t everyone — the breakfast team were excellent — but it was noticeable. We had just stayed at Hotel Verde Mar, literally about five minutes away on the same beach, for roughly half the price. It had a large, properly heated indoor pool and a well-maintained outdoor pool that was actually usable. Even more telling, we recently stayed at Hotel Caracol on Terceira, a hotel that cost roughly one-fifth of what we paid here, and even that hotel maintained the temperature of its outdoor pool properly.

Beautiful location. Friendly and helpful staff.

We stayed here for 4 nights after a 3 nights stay at their adult only sister property, the white. We really enjoyed our time here. It was a different vibe than the white, which was a 8-room adult only property. It was fun to come to Santa Barbara after which was a little more lively, and had the beach bar attached which was fun to go for lunch and/or an after dinner drink. Our room was one of the swim up pool rooms, we didn't use the pool as the water was pretty cold, but was nice to sit out there and read/relax. We didn't eat dinner here but the breakfast was plentiful and tasty. Fresh juice, breads butter and jam, and able to order eggs etc off the main menu. Our only complaint was the pool temp. The white hotels pool was heated which was really nice as some days were chilly, even in July. The pools at Santa Barbara were too cold To really enjoy. Aside from that we loved our stay and definitely would recommend booking her for either a couples stay or a family vacation, we have two kids 11 & 14 and think it would be a really fun place to come back to with them one day! We also enjoyed splitting the time between the two hotels, and having both a quiet, small adult only experience at the white- and then a more beach-vibe experience at Santa Barbara.