Hotel 2-Star di Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe

Food was delightful with lots of choice and a variety of fish, meat and veg-friendly options! A nice location on the beach, and great to have hot water during certain hours The bird life around the gardens is magnificent, with pin-tailed whydahs darting around right in front of the cabin! And a rooster who wakes everyone up at 3:30am!. The boat to the equatorial island seems to go daily, for which you pay a guide, boat transport and for lunch on the island. Road travel to reach the place is very difficult, takes 2.5 hours, and airport transfer costs 80 euros each way (for 160 euros, you're better to rent a car and have freedom to go to other places). Cabins could use some work to make them more comfortable, for example the lighting really needs improvement. Also, staff need better training to understand pre-paid booking sites. If you book this hotel on Trip.com, make sure to bring a printed receipt and even a credit card statement to be prepared to fight when they insist that you pay in cash as well, even though you have a receipt saying you pre-paid by credit card. (I forwarded it to them by email and WhatsApp three times when they kept asking for it and saying I was supposed to depart a day earlier than I had booked for, and then they still chased me to the parking lot demanding cash payment.) They will also ask you to pay tourist tax on top of your room and VAT because they don't understand whether it is included. (They seem confused with *********** where you have to pay in cash on site - don't count on using a credit card.) Also they don't make change in euros so you will need small denomination euro notes. While I had gone here to relax after a stressful work trip in West Africa, these problems with staff not understanding booking and pre-payment and mistaking my date of departure made my stay unnecessarily stressful almost to the point of regretting my trip. Travel is an adventure, isn't it?