Sal Island

Review Clubhotel Riu Funana all-inclusive Cape Verde Islands Sal Island

At our stay in Cape Verde Islands we stayed all nights at the Clubhotel Riu Funana at the southern beach of Sal Island. This is a resort or hotel you book with an all-inclusive package for your stay. I will shortly give you a review of our experience staying at Funana hotel 8 nights.
Clubhotel Riu [...]

At our stay in Cape Verde Islands we stayed all nights at the Clubhotel Riu Funana at the southern beach of Sal Island. This is a resort or hotel you book with an all-inclusive package for your stay. I will shortly give you a review of our experience staying at Funana hotel 8 nights.

Clubhotel Riu Funana has a sister hotel ClubHotel Riu Garopa of the very same architecture and standard just beside Riu Funana. When you stay at Riu Funana you will also use the facilities of ClubHotel Riu Garopa as you just pass without any border between the two large and very similar club hotels. Facilities shared between the ClubHotel Riu Funana and ClubHotel Riu Garopa:
Include  “Sal” beach bar,  “Renova Spa” wellness centre with different treatments, beauty salon and massages (additional charge), Complimentary gym, jacuzzi and sauna, Hairdresser, Mini-club and children’s playground, Hobby club, and the “Pacha” night club.

Review of the beach of Sall next to Clubhotel Riu Funana

As I have mentioned in my earlier post about Sal Island, Sal has a very dry climate and excellent sandy beaches, and the best beach at Sal Island is just beneath Riu Funana Club hotel as it is a beachfront hotel of very high standard.

It is a very broad beach with white sand, clean and attractive. Just close to the path from Funana there are obviously many people enjoying the beach life with a bar, different offers of play and equipment for water sports etc. Plenty of beach chairs are available for your sun bathing

If you want some solitude you just enjoy walking some hundred meters away and settle down in the white sand.

All along the beach the water is really beautiful, torques and clean. The waves and the current can be strong at times, but during our stay in November we didn’t have any restrictions on our swimming in the real nice water.

The coast is famous for windsurfing and other water sports.

For small children and if the beach should be too windy or the sea too tuff you can enjoy a large swimming pool area with all facilities you can imagine. The swimming pool is heated in winter and sun loungers, parasols and towels by the pool area are complimentary.

For lunch or for a snack it isn’t far to walk up from the beach to the nearest restaurant, see also later.

Review of the rooms at Clubhotel Riu Funana

The rooms (500 guestrooms) are nice and clean with what you need, including a balcony or terrace, a safe in the room and satellite TV. The only thing I am missing is a free lan connection in the room.

Food and dining as all inclusive

When you have the all-inclusive package to Riu Funana you have all meals, drinks etc. free of charge all day. In the spacey resort you can chose between four restaurants with each of their special styles of cooking. You have to sign up for three of them the day before to be sure to have a table. The breakfast is a huge buffet – your only problem with the food and drinks is that it demands a strong will not to return with more kilos in weight than you arrived with.

The list of eating and drinking places looks like this:

* “Ponta Preta” non-smoking main restaurant with terrace
* “Cabo Verde” Cape Verdian speciality restaurant
* “Mandalay” Asian restaurant (at ClubHotel Riu Garopa)
* “Mambana” African restaurant (at ClubHotel Riu Garopa)
* “Santa Maria” poolside restaurant/Barbeque restaurant
* “Grogue” lobby bar
* “Batucada” lounge bar
* “Botafogo” poolside bar with swim-up bar
* “Abacaxi” plaza bar
* “Barracuda” dance bar (at ClubHotel Riu Garopa)

The food is very good. Beer and wine is local (Portuguese) of a decent quality and with no restrictions for adults. Spirits are of international brands.

Concluding the review of Clubhotel Riu Funana

All in all we had an excellent stay at Clubhotel Riu Funana  at Sal Island in the Cape Verde Islands with the all-inclusive stay. .We stayed there as a single couple but I will underline that with all the varied facilities and the safe environment Clubhotel Riu Funana should be an excellent vacation destination for families with children of what ever age groups. Like wise Riu Funana should be a super holiday destination for larger family groups for example celebrating the birthday of an older family member or the like.

Find more info about travel and stay in Cape Verde Islands.

Here you will find the web address of Club Hotel Riu Funana at Sal Island, Cape Verde Islands with all-inclusive stay

Read more about Cape Verde Islands at our sister site.

Travel tips for a holiday at Sal Island, Cape Verde Islands

When we had our holiday at Sal Island in Cape Verde Islands we stayed at the southernmost coast south of the town Santa Maria. This is a fine place for vacation if you enjoy blue clean sea water for swimming and water sports. In this area there are quite a number of developers building new [...]

When we had our holiday at Sal Island in Cape Verde Islands we stayed at the southernmost coast south of the town Santa Maria. This is a fine place for vacation if you enjoy blue clean sea water for swimming and water sports. In this area there are quite a number of developers building new hotels, tourist facilities and infrastructure. But still the coast with a huge sandy beach is very attractive. The beach is 8 kilometres long and quite broad.

We stayed at the ClubHotel Riu Funana with an all-inclusive arrangement that worked very well This hotel has probably the best location for beach life and water sports.

Sal is famous for its windsurfing – and windsurfers come here from all over the world as Sal is regarded as one of the five best locations for windsurfing. I will post a full review of the all-inclusive package and the resort ClubHotel Riu Funana later.

Sal Island is in general a very flat island with only a few smaller mountains of weathered down old volcanoes, the highest point being just 1332 feet.

Sal is like a dessert, barely any rain, but very, very dry, and therefore attractive for many visitors who are searching for sunny days during winter time.
When we stayed there one week in November we had sunshine more or less all days.

Sal Island is convenient for tourists from abroad because Sal is just one of two islands of Cape Verde that host an international airport.

Sal has a limited number of tourist attractions aside from the marvellous sandy beach at Santa Maria in the south of Sal. I will give you a few more tips of these attractions.

The first name given to Sal was Llana but because the discovery of salt by the Portuguese it was changed to Sal. Sal as well as other islands may have been known to salt seeking ‘Moors’ before the Portuguese discovery. The first settlement was by slaves from the other Cape Verde island Boa Vista but population remained insignificant until the late 17th century when the demand for salt and livestock grew. The island was a common stop for ships to get salt for ballast and for trade at little or no cost. Now an old salt mine in a volcano crater is one of the main landscape attractions at Sal.

More about windsurfing, diving, snorkeling, sailing, deep sea fishing and birding at Cape Verde  to come.