The catch at The Rebello Hotel & Spa

The hotel has one pool and it is indoors: a semi-heated pool in the Tranquility Water Lounge, part of a spa done as an ancient Roman bath, with a sauna and excavated artefacts set around it. The rooftop is a bar, not a pool deck. The spa's own menu gives the lounge as open from 7am to 8pm, by reservation only and for ages seven and over, and the hotel adds that children must be with an adult. Under-sevens do not go in at all, and guests report that the rules for children are enforced strictly.

Nor is the pool kept for residents. Every treatment, from 90 euros for 30 minutes to 220 for the two-hour Rebello Ritual, comes with an hour in the lounge and sauna, for day visitors as much as for guests. The gym is the exception: open 24 hours, and for hotel guests only.

Every size of suite except the three-bedroom duplex comes twice, in a plain version and a River version. Only the River ones, from the 37 square metre River Studio up, are described with the Douro and old Porto in the window; the plain versions carry no view at all in the hotel's own descriptions. The view the hotel is photographed for is therefore a category you book, not a room you might be given.

Outdoor space is a second decision. For the River Studio and three of the four River suites, a terrace is an add-on chosen at the next step of the booking, and the hotel warns that terraces vary in size and view, that units differ from the pictures, and that ceiling heights and window sizes change from room to room.

The hotel's own copy says that within five minutes you are strolling over the Dom Luís I bridge. On foot from the door, the middle of the bridge's lower deck is 17 minutes along the quay, Praça da Ribeira on the far bank is 22, and the nearest metro station, Jardim do Morro, is 21 minutes uphill. The quay itself gets busy in season, too.

The shortcut is the Teleférico de Gaia, whose lower station is an 8-minute walk east. Its operator charges 7 euros one way and 10 return, and it runs from 10am to 8pm between late April and late September, but only until 6pm from late October to late March. It lifts you to the upper deck of the bridge beside the metro, which is useful by day and no help at all after dinner in winter.

Breakfast is served in Pot&Pan from 7:30 to 11:30, from a menu of eggs five ways, Benedicts on sourdough, pancakes and oatmeal. Check that your rate includes it, because the hotel gives no price for adding it.

The mechanism is arithmetic: 103 suites, some of them sleeping four or six, feeding into one restaurant over those four hours. Guests praise the food and the staff, and report just as consistently that when the house is full, breakfast overflows into the lobby and service slips.

Every one of the hotel's six room pages lists an en suite with shower, and none of its room descriptions mentions a bath. The only hint of one is the Two Bedroom Duplex Suite's amenity list on the hotel's own website, which lists both a bath and shower combination and shower only. In both one-bedroom duplexes the kitchen and living room are on the lower level and the queen bed and the bathroom on the upper, which is charming until somebody needs the bathroom in the night on an unfamiliar staircase.

The rate also leaves things out. Vila Nova de Gaia's city tax, 3 euros a night for every guest aged 16 or over, for up to seven nights, is paid at the hotel. Parking in the hotel's own car park is described as a small daily fee with no figure attached, and a pet costs 30 euros a night.