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The Martinhal Lisbon Oriente is a true oasis for Moms. Here’s the thing about traveling with kids: most “luxury” hotels tolerate your children. They’ll smile politely when your toddler drops Cheerios in the lobby.
They’ll provide a crib if you ask three times. And they’ll give you that look, you know the one, when your kid squeals in the during dinner at the restaurant.
Martinhal Lisbon Oriente is not that hotel.
This is the hotel that made me feel like I was actually on vacation, not just parenting in a different city. And as someone who lives in Portugal with my family and has stayed at my fair share of luxury properties across the country, that is not something I say lightly.
If you’re a family looking for a luxury hotel in Lisbon, one where the kids are genuinely happy, you can actually rest, and nobody makes you feel like your stroller is an inconvenience, keep reading. I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know to decide if this hotel is right for your family and how to book it.
My stay was not sponsored, hosted, or gifted. This is an honest review of a hotel brand that I truly love.
What Makes Martinhal Lisbon Oriente Different
Let me get straight to the point: Martinhal Lisbon Oriente is a 5-star luxury hotel that was designed from the ground up for families.
Not retrofitted. Not “family-friendly” as an afterthought. The truly wonderful founders, Chitra and Roman Stern, started the Martinhal brand because they couldn’t find a luxury hotel that actually understood what families need.
I say wonderful because I actually met them, and they are wonderful people with an extraordinarily beautiful family.
Their first property opened in Sagres in 2010, and the Oriente location opened in June 2023 in Lisbon’s Park of Nations district.
The building itself is stunning, designed by renowned Portuguese architect Eduardo Capinha Lopes with a living green façade of Portuguese olive trees. It sits by the Tagus River in one of Lisbon’s most modern neighborhoods, and from the outside it looks like a sleek, high-end apartment complex.
But inside, every single detail has been thought through for both luxury and family life. That combination is what makes this place exceptional.
This isn’t a resort where “family-friendly” means plastic chairs and a sad ball pit in the corner. This is world-class luxury with an infrastructure built around the reality of traveling with kids.
The Arrival Experience
From the moment you walk in, you feel the difference. The staff greets you like you belong there, and more importantly, like your kids belong there too. There’s water, snacks, and a genuine effort to help you decompress from what was probably a chaotic airport exit with bags, car seats, and children who have zero interest in being patient.
Getting to Martinhal Oriente from Lisbon airport is ridiculously easy. It’s about a 5–6 minute drive, roughly €6–9 by Bolt or Uber. That proximity to the airport is a massive win when you’re traveling with little ones, but here’s the thing: you don’t hear the airport at all once you’re inside.
The hotel is an beautiful. Walled gardens, quiet corridors, and that feeling of being completely removed from the chaos of the city, even though you’re minutes from everything.
The Rooms: Full Apartments, Not Just Hotel Rooms
This is one of the biggest things I want you to understand about Martinhal Oriente, because it’s a game-changer for families: you’re not booking a hotel room. You’re booking a luxury apartment.
The property has 82 hotel apartments ranging from studios to 4-bedroom configurations. Here’s what that actually means for your family:
Studios work well for couples or a couple with one small child. One-bedroom apartments give you a separate living area and kitchen — great for families with a baby or toddler.
Two-bedroom apartments (roughly 98 square meters) come with two spacious bedrooms, each with king-size or twin beds, two full bathrooms, a separate living and dining area, and a balcony. Three-bedroom apartments can sleep up to 8 adults and 2 children.
AND OMG THE VIEWS! Some of the apartments have the most stunning views with a spacious balcony where you can have meals.
Every apartment comes with a fully equipped kitchenette featuring Smeg and Miele appliances, an espresso/coffee machine, toaster, oven, microwave, blender, dishwasher, and even a washing machine and tumble dryer. For parents, this is everything.
You can heat up a bottle at 2 AM without calling room service. You can throw in a load of laundry after a beach day. You can make snacks without leaving the room. These are the things that turn a “trip” into an actual vacation when you have kids.
The design is minimalistic but warm. Everything feels new, well-crafted, and intentional without being cold or sterile. Large windows flood the space with Lisbon’s gorgeous light, and many apartments have views of the gardens or the Tagus River.
In the bedrooms, you get premium bedding, hypo-allergenic pillows, and blackout options (critical for naps and early bedtimes). The bathrooms are luxurious with rain showers, deep soaking tubs, quality toiletries, hairdryers, and magnifying mirrors.
Chromecast is built into the TVs, so you can stream Netflix, YouTube, or whatever you need from your phone, something I always look for in a hotel and was thrilled to find here.
And if you need baby or child-specific gear, this is where Martinhal’s Baby Concierge service comes in. You can pre-order, free of charge, items like bottle warmers, cots, pushchairs, baby safety gates, high chairs, and door protectors. You don’t have to pack them. They’re waiting for you when you arrive.
That level of care for parents isn’t a luxury. It should be standard. But until the rest of the hotel industry catches up, Martinhal is doing it better than anyone.
The Kids Club: The Reason Parents Actually Rest Here
Let me tell you about the kids club, because this is where Martinhal Oriente earns its reputation.
The kids club accommodates children from 6 months old up to 8 years, with both supervised drop-off sessions and unsupervised family play sessions.
There’s a pool table, ping pong table, gaming consoles, play mats for younger kids, a trampoline, board games, books, Legos, and movies projected onto the wall every day at 5:00 PM. The monitors are wonderful, genuinely engaged, warm, and great with kids of all ages.
For older kids and teens, there’s a pool table, board games, and more.
And here’s the part that matters most: babysitting services are available with 24-hour notice. That means you can actually leave the hotel for a dinner date, explore the city, get a massage at the spa knowing your kids are in excellent hands.
Having a kids club of this caliber inside a luxury city hotel is genuinely rare. Most family-friendly hotels in city centers offer a playroom at best. This is a fully staffed, thoughtfully designed space that your kids will actively want to go to. Mine didn’t want to leave.
The Pools and Outdoor Space
Martinhal Oriente has both indoor and outdoor pools, each with a separate baby wading pool. The indoor pool is heated, ideal for younger kids or cooler days. The outdoor pool is set in a beautifully landscaped walled garden that feels completely private and luxurious.
Right next to the outdoor pool, there’s a sunken trampoline so kids can swim, jump, swim, jump, and repeat that cycle for approximately four hours while you sit poolside with a drink.
There’s table service at the pool, so you can order food and drinks without getting up. There’s also an outdoor shower for rinsing off.
The whole outdoor area feels like a private resort garden, not a city hotel pool deck. It’s walled, green, quiet, and beautifully maintained. You could easily spend an entire day here and feel like you’d had a full vacation day without leaving the property.
The Terrace Restaurant and Breakfast
The Terrace is Martinhal Oriente’s all-day dining restaurant, and it’s one of those places where they’ve thought about families without sacrificing quality for adults. The cuisine is Oriental and Mediterranean fusion, fitting for the “Oriente” theme, and it’s genuinely excellent.
What matters for parents: there’s a dedicated kids’ area within the restaurant where little ones can sit and play while you actually finish your meal and enjoy a glass of wine in peace. Childcare during meals can also be arranged in advance.
The kids’ menu is well-curated with healthy choices, not just chicken nuggets and fries, though those are available too.
Breakfast is fantastic. A full buffet spread with a wide variety including fruits, breads, cereals, hot items, and accommodations for dietary restrictions (gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free).
Multiple reviews call it one of the best hotel breakfasts in Lisbon, and from personal experience, I agree. When breakfast is this good, it’s one less thing you have to plan for your family’s morning, and that matters more than people realize.
If your stay is over a Sunday, then make sure to reserve the Brunch. It is a wonderful experience with live music, food from literally around the world, and kids activities so you can, again, enjoy your meal while kids happily play nearby.
It is one of the best brunches in Lisbon.
Room service is also available and excellent for those mornings when you just can’t get everyone dressed and downstairs on time.
The Spa: 14th Floor Views Over Lisbon
The spa at Martinhal Oriente sits on the 14th floor, and the views alone are worth the visit — panoramic views over the city and the Tagus River. It has two treatment rooms offering massages, facials, and wellness treatments. The spa is open daily.
Here’s how this works as a parent: you drop the kids at the kids club. You take the elevator to the 14th floor. You get the best massage of your trip while looking out over Lisbon. You come back down feeling like a human being again.
This is the kind of thing that separates Martinhal from every other “family hotel” I’ve stayed at. It’s not just about keeping the kids busy. It’s about giving parents actual moments of luxury and rest.
A spa with this kind of view in a hotel that also has world-class childcare? That’s the whole package.
The Gym and Workspace
The second floor houses a fully equipped gym with treadmills, ellipticals, weight machines, bikes, rowing machines, and everything you need for a real workout, not the two-treadmill-and-a-yoga-mat situation you get at most city hotels.
For digital nomads and remote workers (and yes, I’m including Etsy sellers and online business owners in that category), there’s a dedicated coworking space with meeting rooms and private call booths.
The WiFi throughout the property is 500+ Mbps, fast enough for video calls, uploads, and running your business without issues.
I’ve worked from this hotel and it’s genuinely one of the better remote work setups I’ve used in Lisbon.
There are even adult work tables positioned near the kids club play area, so you can plug in your laptop while your kids are occupied nearby. That’s the kind of design detail that tells you the people who built this hotel are parents and have intentionally and thoughtfully designed with families in mind.
Location: Park of Nations (Parque das Nações)
Martinhal Oriente is located in Lisbon’s Park of Nations district, the modern, riverside area built for Expo ’98. Here’s what that means for your family:
The Pros
- This area is completely flat. Unlike the rest of Lisbon with its famous hills and cobblestones (beautiful but brutal with a stroller), the Park of Nations is smooth, wide, and easy to navigate with kids of any age.
- Within walking distance you have the Lisbon Oceanarium, consistently ranked as one of the best aquariums in the world and an absolute must-do with kids.
- You also have the Pavilion of Knowledge (an interactive science museum that my kids love), the Telecabine cable car, Vasco da Gama Shopping Centre, and a marina with cafés and bars, and beautiful gardens and parks along the river.
- There’s a full grocery store (Pingo Doce) within a 5-minute walk, and plenty of restaurants serving everything from Portuguese food to Thai, Taiwanese, bakeries with ridiculously good pastries, and casual cafés. You will not struggle for dining options outside the hotel.
- Gare do Oriente, Lisbon’s main transport hub designed by Santiago Calatrava, is less than a 10-minute walk away, giving you Metro, train, and bus access to anywhere in the city.
The Cons
- You are not in central Lisbon. If you want to stumble out of your hotel into Alfama’s cobblestone streets or be steps from Chiado’s shops, this isn’t your hotel.
- Downtown Lisbon is about a 20-minute drive or Metro ride, roughly €8–10 by Bolt or Uber. I personally find Bolt more affordable than Uber here.
But here’s why I think that’s actually an advantage for families: you want a buffer between your hotel and the tourist chaos. You want a place where you can retreat, recover, and let the kids decompress.
You can easily go downtown for a half-day, come back, let the kids hit the pool and kids club, and actually feel rested.
That rhythm of explore-then-retreat is what makes a family trip feel like a vacation instead of a forced march through monuments.
You can also split your stay between Martinhal Chiado (downtown Lisbon) and Martinhal Lisbon Oriente. You can stay at the Oriente property when you are closer to your departure since it is so close to the airport.
This is THE place that you want to relax just before heading back to the chaos of airport travel.
Who This Hotel Is Perfect For
Families with children: This is the sweet spot. The Baby Concierge, kids club, wading pools, and flat neighborhood make this almost unbeatable for this age group. The range of activities, from baby play mats to teen gaming consoles to the trampoline and pools, means everyone has something to do.
Parents who work remotely: The coworking space, fast WiFi, and kids club combination means you can genuinely get work done while your family is taken care of.
Families flying in and out of Lisbon: The 5-minute airport proximity is a huge logistical win, especially for first or last nights of a trip.
Families planning day trips from Lisbon: Sintra, Cascais, the Alentejo, and the Arrábida coast are all easy drives from here. Free parking and EV charging are available at the hotel.
Who This Hotel Is NOT For
I want to be straight with you because that’s how I operate:
Couples without kids looking for nightlife and a central location: You’ll be happier at a boutique hotel in Bairro Alto or Chiado. While still lux, this hotel’s magic is its family infrastructure, if you don’t need that, you’re paying for something you won’t use.
Travelers who want to walk everywhere in central Lisbon: The 20-minute commute to downtown isn’t a dealbreaker, but if being in the heart of the historic center is non-negotiable for you, Martinhal’s Chiado location (right in central Lisbon) might be a better fit, though it’s smaller and doesn’t have the pools.
Martinhal Oriente vs. Martinhal Chiado: Which One?
Since both are in Lisbon, here’s the quick comparison:
Choose Oriente if: You want pools (indoor and outdoor), a larger kids club, apartment-style living with full kitchens, flat terrain for strollers, proximity to the airport, and the Oceanarium and science museum nearby. Best for longer stays or families with younger children.
Choose Chiado if: You want to be in the historic center of Lisbon, walking distance to Bairro Alto, Time Out Market, and all the major sights. It’s boutique-style, smaller, and has the same Martinhal service DNA, but it trades the resort-style amenities for unbeatable location.
My take: if you’re in Lisbon for more than a few days with kids, Oriente gives you everything you need in one place plus easy access to the rest of the city. If you’re doing a quick 2-night city break and want to maximize walkable sightseeing, Chiado makes sense.
If You’re Also Heading to the Algarve: Martinhal Sagres
I’ve also stayed at Martinhal Sagres in the western Algarve, and it is equally wonderful. If you’re planning a Lisbon-then-Algarve itinerary (which is one of my favorite ways to experience Portugal with kids), I highly recommend staying at both.
The level of care, the quality of the kids club, the family-first philosophy, it’s consistent across the brand. The experience you have at Martinhal Oriente is the same experience you’ll have at Sagres.
Practical Booking Details
Address: Praça Príncipe Perfeito, Park of Nations, Lisbon Check-in: 3:00 PM | Check-out: 11:00 AM Important: Let the hotel know your expected arrival time in advance (you can do this through the Special Requests box when booking or by contacting them directly). Airport transfer: Private transfers with age-appropriate car seats can be arranged through the hotel. Parking: Available on-site, with EV charging stations.
The Bottom Line
Martinhal Lisbon Oriente is the hotel that finally understands something most luxury brands haven’t figured out: parents deserve to actually vacation when they travel with their kids.
Everything is here. The kids club that your children will beg to go back to. The pools where they can exhaust themselves. The spa where you can exhaust your stress.
The apartment where you can do laundry and heat up milk at midnight. The restaurant where you can finish a sentence over dinner. The location where you can explore Lisbon’s best attractions and retreat to peace when you need it.
I don’t say this about many hotels: this place is special. It’s the reason the Martinhal brand has the reputation it has in Portugal, and it’s the reason families come back year after year.
Portugal Travel Planning Guide
🚑 Should I buy travel insurance for Portugal?
It is strongly recommended. Non residents do not automatically receive free public healthcare, although private healthcare is available. Travel insurance covers emergencies, delays, and medical visits. If you require a Schengen visa, insurance is mandatory. Visitors Coverage is a highly trusted and recommended choice.
💳 Will my debit card or credit card work in Portugal, and do I need cash?
Most major credit and debit cards work in Portugal, including Visa, Mastercard, and many travel cards from US and UK banks. Some smaller cafés, markets, and rural spots still prefer cash, so carry a little on hand. To avoid foreign transaction fees, cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve are excellent options. For ATM withdrawals and currency exchange, use a Wise card. Wise usually provides better exchange rates than traditional banks and is widely accepted at Portuguese ATMs and anywhere debit and credit cards are accepted.
📲 Will my phone work in Portugal?
Many major carriers offer roaming plans, but costs vary. For affordable data, purchase a local SIM from Vodafone or MEO or use an eSIM like Airalo. Public wifi exists but is not always reliable, so a local data plan is ideal.
🚙💨 Is it safe to rent a car in Portugal?
Yes. Renting a car is one of the best ways to explore Portugal. Roads are well maintained. Expect toll highways and narrow streets in older villages. Automatic cars are limited, so book early. I recommend using Discover Cars to find the most reputable rental car company. Just filter for the company with the best reviews.
💧 Can you drink tap water in Portugal?
Yes. Tap water is safe throughout Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve, and most populated regions. In remote rural areas water systems may vary, so check locally if you are unsure. Many visitors prefer a filtered bottle because the mineral taste can be stronger in some areas, though generally safe.
🏩 Best way to book accommodations in Portugal
I use Booking.com and Hotels.com for hotels. Mostly Hotels.com because I love a rewards program! For unforgettable, luxury stays, I highly recommend Plum Guide for your stay. VRBO also works incredibly well for luxury stays, especially for families.
✈️ Best site to search for flights to Portugal
Skyscanner and Google Flights provide reliable fare tracking for Lisbon, Porto, and Faro. Prices vary significantly by season, with summer being the highest.
🎫 Do I need a visa for Portugal?
US, UK, and most EU passport holders do not need a visa for short tourist stays within the 90-day Schengen limit. Stays longer than 90 days require a visa arranged before arrival.
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