Monte Velho - Portugal

Gemma (this is their first In The Saddle holiday) Amazing location | I was a bit disappointed with my rides unfortunately. I was given difficult horses on 3 out of my 4 lessons (and we booked 5!) which unfortunately meant that by the time we’d sorted them out my lesson was over. I did have 1 fabulous lesson on a beautiful horse called Favourite and asked if I could ride him again on the last day but was given one of the difficult horses again instead. I understand that everyone wants to ride the GP horses but as an inter 1 rider I only had that 1 ride where I felt like I really learnt anything.

I also have a fear of heights and this was not accounted for on the trail ride and the trainer did not understand when I tried to tell him and I ended up having a pretty unpleasant experience.

Sorry that this sounds so negative the place is amazing and it wouldn’t stop me going back but I just wanted to be honest about my experience.

[Abbie from In The Saddle replies: Many thanks for your feedback. We are looking into this and will be in touch shortly].

Do you have any comments about the accommodation and food?

The rooms were beautiful but the bathrooms are not ideal for sharing with friends.

The food on the whole was great but a bit more choice for the main course at dinner would be welcome!

How could we improve the quality of pre-holiday information that we send?

None I think the information provided by you as excellent!

How could we improve the way we handled your booking and payment?

No this was all excellent

Do you have any other feedback for us?

Just to reiterate that the place was amazing, I think I just got unlucky with the horses I rode.

An option to pay more for private lessons might be welcome. There was a lot of standing around whilst they focussed on the other rider as they didn’t seem to want us to ride without supervision. Add to this a difficult horse/instructor getting on and you end up with 10/20 minutes riding for the 60 euro.