Santa Barbara Eco Beach Resort

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.

Beautiful resort. We stayed in a two bedroom corner villa which was spacious and had a great view. Very clean and quiet resort. The location is great, right next to Ribiera Grande and the best beach - Santa Barabara! The restaurant has quality food and breakfast was delicious. The pool was small but very nice. A little cold though. The resort was never crowded and plenty of available resort parking for rental car. Service was great, they came out right away and fixed an issue with our hot tub. The only downsides were that the fitness center is by appointment only, I wish it was a large gym open all day; and the resort is right next to the public parking for the beach. That parking lot is very crowded and makes it difficult to access the resort when cars are parked everywhere on the road. Overall though a great stay! A little pricey but worth it. Would recommend.

My wife and I just spent 3 nights here at the beginning of our Portugal trip and two things were apparent: first, we should have stayed twice as long, and second, we should have done it at the end of our trip as a peaceful chill-out. Those two things aside - AMAZING. Perfectly positioned in the middle of the north shore of the island, you can get to any sights quickly by car - hikes, beaches, whatever - and you need to be able to because the weather on Sao Miguel is very micro-climated and quick to change. The hotel and grounds are modern and spectacularly kept, positioned above a beautiful black sand beach. The restaurant had creative, delicious cuisine, and they were accommodating to every request, with incredible hand-crafted cocktails. Most important of all - the staff. Friendly, professional, and genuinely interested in making sure you saw the right sights, at the right time, and every suggestion they made to us was spot-on successful. If you are lucky enough to get to work with the concierge Bianca, you'll see Azorean hospitality at its finest, but the whole staff was wonderful. This is a great spot for a nature-based chill-out time, and if you have modern/contemporary tastes in food and architecture, then you have your winner here. Plan a stay here with confidence. We would go back anytime!