BOM BOM - Principe Collection

It's difficult to review this hotel fairly. The first thing to say is that Principe is staggeringly beautiful. Honestly the most amazingly stunning place I have ever been, and I have never seen anywhere so beautiful and so little-developed. We took a boat-ride down the west coast and for a solid hour, all you see are deserted beaches, thick jungle, and towering cliffs behind. The sole development visible on the shore was a tiny fishing village: otherwise, Praia Sundy is hidden in the jungle, and Bom Bom itself is pretty well hidden too. It honestly looks like the setting for Jurassic Park or The Lost World. The nature is gorgeous too: there are birds of prey in the sky, kingfishers and yellow weaver-birds flying about, crabs everywhere and lots of sealife visible from the beaches. We did a hike to a waterfall which was great, and turtle-watching in the evening was unforgettable. Principe is definitely a hassle to get to, but without jetlag from Europe it didn't feel too arduous. Bom Bom itself has the most amazing location, on a headland with two long sweeping beaches on either side. Most of the time these beaches are deserted. The pool is on a raised area in the centre, with views to both beaches, and shade from towering trees. It's a lovely place to spend time. The rooms are very nice. Garden view villas seem to have sea-views through the trees, sea-view villas are raised high with direct ocean views, and beachfront villas are exactly that. The decor is good, they're all spacious and clean, the AC works well: it's been renovated very nicely. Where it gets complicated is in the restaurant. The resort is isolated: there's nothing at all nearby so you'll be having all your meals on-site, and honestly, by any conventional luxury hotel standards, it's really not good. Breakfast is a limited selection of pastries and cakes cut into weirdly small pieces, sweaty meat and cheeses, fruit swarming with flies, and some pots of yoghurt which have sometimes gone off. Lunch is really not great and best avoided. And then dinner. There's a named chef, I think from Portugal, and the menu reads well. It's fancy, with sauces and garnishes and so on. But the chef splits his time between the three HBD resorts and when he's not there, it kind of falls apart. You wait ages for a menu, and then there's only one per table. You wait ages to make your order. The food takes ages to arrive (easily 1.5 hours to get a starter and a main), and when it arrives it's pot-luck as to whether it resembles what you ordered. Fish appears as chicken. Starters arrive at the same time as mains for some at the table, and others get nothing. You might get two mains simultaneously. The food quality is variable: some is very good but some dishes are honestly inedible. I think the problem is that tourism is very new in Principe, and the staff are being asked to prepare and serve unfamiliar dishes in unfamiliar ways. That could work fine if they were closely

Currently closed for refurbishment. Boat trip took around the resort and beaches and major refurb is in progress. Spoke to a waiter at Sundy Praia who previously worked at Bob Bom and thoroughly recommended it. No idea when the resort will be open again.