Our family stayed at the villa for 2 weeks in July. Ana and Antonio travelled down from Lisbon to meet us and spoke excellent English. They explained everything in the villa and showed us around Cabanas in their car. The villa itself is approx one year old, so all the facilities worked well. Downstairs has an open plan kitchen, living and dining area with everything you should need. Quiet air con units are in all of the 3 bedrooms upstairs and in the living area, however, it is not in the 4th bedroom downstairs. It was very hot in July so this was a little problem for my parents even if they kept the door open to the living room. The best aspect of this villa is the pool - it is very large (the photos don't do it justice). it has a smaller, shallow part that is great for young children and a large, deeper part that you can still stand up in. Our 4 year old daughter, who is a competent swimmer, spent hours in there! The local pool maintenance guy was excellent. The villa also felt very secure as there were shutters on all the downstairs windows. Cabanas itself although seemed a very safe place. A couple of points are that the outside area is quite public - they have tried to screen the villa but it is in an elevated position on its own between two (admittedly quite quiet) roads. It is overlooked by some Golden Club apartments but this didn't really bother us. There is also no DVD player and no WiFi. Another slight problem was the steep, spiral staircase that made it difficult for carrying our baby up and down and for moving heavy suitcases. The walk to the beach boat transfers (75 cents pp) was also further than we thought especially with small children in the heat - they are hoping to get a free pass for next year. Cabanas beach when there however, is fantastic and there is a restaurant and a bar but I'd recommend taking your own supplies with you as quite expensive.
Cabanas is a relaxing place with a superb boardwalk overlooking the Ria de Formosa. Many excellent boat trips to do. There is lots of wildlife and it's great for rock pooling, hundreds of crabs! We BBQed a lot but all the restaurants we went to were of excellent quality and very reasonable - Sabores de Ria and Mariscos & Petiscos recommended. Quasi bar also good - 2 for 1 drinks between 7-8pm! There is an ok Spa supermarket and a good butchers, fish mongers, chemist, etc. A large Continente supermarket is in Tavira. Beware - lots of mosquitoes! A fab holiday, would definitely recommend.
