Factfile
Address: Vale do Lobo, Resort Turístico de Luxo, SA, 8135 - 864 Vale do Lobo, Algarve, Portugal.
Telephone:
00 351 289 353 333
Website: Vale do Lobo
Email: Reservations
How to get there: Head for Almancil just off the EN125, 20km west of Faro. Follow the signposts from Almancil to Vale do Lobo.
EasyJet currently operates from Newcastle, Stansted, Belfast, Barcelona, and Bristol. From August 2003, another three routes to Alicante, Prague, and Paris with be launched.
Passengers can fly to Stansted (from £40 return inc tax ) and fly to one of 21 alternative destinations. If they choose to fly on to Faro fares start at £58 return inc tax. |
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These are exciting times at Vale do Lobo. A third golf course is planned, a new hotel envisaged and the resort continues to grow both in size and quality. It's something Sander van Gelder, chairman of the Vale do Lobo group of companies, believes will simply continue while the will is there. "The plans for Vale do Lobo are ambitious," he said. "They always have been because we have in excess of 1,100 houses built and we are going to build another 1,000 and business is always growing, growing, growing. "But as we add more houses, we always add more facilities in order to make it totally self-contained and to make sure that for everyone who likes to come here, there is something for them. That is what we have something like 25 sports catered. We had someone here the other day who asked 'why don't you have darts?' So now we have darts!" There may be 25 - or should that now be 26 sports - but it's golf and tennis which are the most important to Vale do Lobo, but van Gelder doesn't see a clash. "I think they are very complementary. Tennis has a big disadvantage during the summer in that it is a very active sport and in the midde of the summer it is too active a sport to play outside because it is too hot. "We have tennis and golf lovers who come here. The resort can cope with the extra traffic that 1,000 homes will bring because it is our intention to build another 18 hole golf course. We are working on it with Rocky Roquemore who has drawn up the plans for the new layout and we think we will have the course playable in eight years time. "It will go out along the coast and it could become the number one course, followed by the Ocean and the Royal because the Ocean is going be better than the Royal after the renovations we are doing now." Van Gelder was keen to stress that home owners will always have the priority on the golf courses followed by the guests who stay on the complex. "Property owners always have a starting time and that will always be the case. "We are idealists," he added."We like to keep all the people happy and we are a team who are only happy if the people who are coming are happy and we like to offer an enormous range of things." Vale do Lobo is a quite enormous resort with more than 7,000 beds and something like 700,000 people get there in any one year. The recent Portuguse Open showed the course and the resort at it's best and there are plans for a new five star hotel with 180 rooms and it will be built where the halfway house is on the ninth on the Royal course and Vale do Lobo will probably run it themselves as van Gelder is keen to maintain the principle of quality. "We control the franchises to make sure the quality remains. It has to be all under one umbrella control otherwise one bad apple can spoil the whole barrell." Vale do Lobo was born in 1962, when British businessman, Sir Richard Costain began the development of the resort, however his dream of turning it into a tourist paradise was later kept alive by van Gelder after Costain had decided to put the company into voluntary liquidation following the revolution of 1974 and Mr van Gelder, who originally planned to buy a single plot and build a holiday villa for his family, went on to buy the whole estate in 1977. So just what does it cost to stay at Vale do Lobo. It can start as low as 100 euros (around £70) a day for a studio apartment up to 375 euros (around £260) for a detached villa - rates vary according to the seasons. Guests booking direct with Vale do Lobo received a resort card which gives a 50 per cent discount on green fees which means the golf will cost you 57.50 euros on the Ocean course and 67.50 euros on the Royal course. With the card there's also free use of the gym, discounts at shops and restaurants and other facilities, free use of the tennis courts and the resort's internal bus service and I have to say the restaurants and bars around the Don Felipa Hotel are well worth a visit and excellent value and quality. But what of the golf courses? The answer is that they are terrific. Both courses were designed by the golfing legend Sir Henry Cotton and redeveloped by American architect Rocky Roquemore. The original three loops of nine holes have been incorporated into two spectacular 18-hole courses combining links and inland golf. The Royal course is set amongst rolling pine covered terrain and incorporating the spectracular 205 yard 16th played over a barrancay to an island green. One of Roquemore's contributions to the Royal is the par three ninth over a lake to a stunning semi-island green and subtle changes have been made to the holes on the former Yellow nine and the course winds its way among lakes, pines and fig trees The Ocean course is well regarded for it spectacular scenery and combines the former Orange nine hole course designed by Cotton, and the Green course designed by Trent Jones and a lot of work has been carried out which includes the extension of some holes and the addition of more bunkers. Built on mainly undulating coast land the course features narrow fairways set amongst umbrella pines as well as some demanding holes near to the beach where sea breezes demand extra concentration. It's famous 16th one of the most spectacular short holes you will ever see and two par five holes in the finishing three demand concentration is at a maximum or you will regret it. | 
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