Vip Eden Lisboa, Lisbon

Probably the hotel in europe with the greatest overall potential. It might sound strange; a fantastically beautiful 4 star hotel with great location in beautiful Lisbon and I start by mentioning the potential. But that's pretty much what I reacted to when staying there for a week. It is quite typicall for Lisbon. It has all the requirements for being world class but due to bad management it hardly deserves its four stars. It is architestacally emensefully beautiful and in a sense i feel sorry for the fasade. I truly believe that this hotel could have been, or hopefully will be, a european classic among top class hotels but it suffers from bad management and ownership lacking visions. A symptomatic reaction to the lack of entreprenourship in Lisbon it seems. The young is abscent and the old just a nostalgic echoe of the portuguese 'saudade'. Lisbon is pretty much what Barcelona used to be before the huge revision it went through (God forbid me to compare Portugal to Spain or Catalunya!!!!!!) connected to the Olympic Games and I really hope the city and hotel will experience the attractiveness it deserves. There is nothing wrong at all with the concept of the aparthotel. Totaly the contrary, but it seems like the owners have forgotten how to preserve the inheritage of what ones was awarded 'best tourist project' in Portugal. The fantastic roof terrace bar is only open for breakfast but has potentional of attract any type of economically strong croud. Cleaning is quite lousy and there is no existing room service. During the week i stayed one of the two elevators was broken creating extremelly long waiting or stair walking. New, visionary managemanet could make this a pioneer image of the new, trendy and world class Lisbon. It has everything it needs to success.