Having never visited Lisbon before and also being rather short on the cash front our stay at Praça Figueira was the culmination of hours of internet research. We had set a list of criteria at the beginning that we were looking for which basically included the following
Twin room
Ensuite bathroom
No more that £30 each per night
Not much of a criteria really but that these were the only points that we weren’t willing or able to compromise on.
First I built up a list of all the budget hotels, hostels and pensions in Lisbon from reputable sites like trip advisor, I’ve been there, lonely planet and hostels.com. From this list we then checked if they had the basic requirements set out above. From that remaining list I then ear-marked the one’s that were actually available on the dates we wanted and discarded the rest. Now came the fun part…for each hotel or hostel I then revisited all the sites that offered reviews by people who had actually stayed there. This proved to be an eye-opener. Some places that had been in our ‘top 10′ ended up being struck off straight away after reading tales of leaky toilets, grouchy owners and cockroaches! I accept that everyone’s experience is different and everyone can have the odd bad experience but hotels with a catalogue of moan reviews did suggest a problem!
Having sorted the wheat from the chaff, next I looked to see if our current favourites had their own website as well as a listing or advertisement on another site. I have to say that those without a website got struck off the list. Being the internet girl that I am I feel that having a web presence is important these days. I am endlessly frustrated by the multitude of businesses here in the UK that are still not web savvy, but I digress…
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