In the spirit of the Travel Guru, who sadly will be missing this trip, I"ll try and give you an idea of what"s what in and around Vilamoura.
Vilamoura is nowadays quite a spralling town, in that the Casino and Marina are at one end and the golf courses are at the other. Therefore property expansion has generally been in between these two areas.
The Marina is undoubtable the hub of the resort, with it"s many lively bars, (particularly The Irish Cabin, which will no doubt be our spiritual home), restaurants and nautical attractions in close proximity to the Casino on it"s eastern fringe.
Next to the Casino are many of the larger hotels, which makes access to most faciltities pretty hard to beat.
To the north of the town are most of the golf courses, namely, The Old, Victoria, Pinhal, Laguna, Millenium and Vila Sol. Many of these are surrounded by villas and apartments and all offer a nice alternative for lunch, particularly Vila Sol and The Old Course.
Further afield, there are large shopping malls in Faro and Guia both about 20kms away), a go-kart track in Almancil (10 kms away), the famous "Julias" beach bar at Quinta do Lago (12 kms), a number of good restaurants in Almancil (10kms away) and a famous local market in Loule (15kms away) on Saturdays.
The main road along the Algarve is the EN125 which runs for the Spanish border to the east, all the way along to Cape St. Vincent in the West. If you are driving and get a bit lost, always try and get back to this road. There is motorway which does the same thing which is about 3 kms inland on the EN125, but this is now a toll road.
Depandant on whether you want to stay in Vilamoura or venture further along the Algarve you might like to hire a car. I have always used ZitAuto based at Faro airport as their rates are very competative, especially at this time of year and again a link is below. I will leave it to each person/couple/group to make their own arrangements here. You will need both parts of your driving licence to rent a car and you must be over 23 years of age.
Finally, we all need to get to and from Faro airport to our repective villas/hotels.
My suggestion for those in hotels is that you simply get a cab outside the airport terminal to your hotel and then book a car with the hotel if you feel the need. The transit time from Faro airport to Vilamoura is about 20 mins. I believe the cost is around 30 euro each way. Most taxis are black Mercedes with lime green roofs. You could also contact your hotels and see if the offer a shuttle service.
Alternatively you can get together and book a minibus transfer.
For those in villas, again the choice is yours dependant on yopu sightseeing intentions. If you do need a car then Zit auto if the best bet.
I have attached some links here for those who would like more info.
ZitAuto 00351 289 315 559
http://www.top10portugal.com/loule-portugal-algarvehttp://www.julias-algarve.com/http://www.vilamourauncovered.com/http://www.mydestination.com/algarve/nightlife/117054/the-irish-cabin-pubinsert 4 letters a r s e (Ger)http://www.alg****rra.com/faro-airport-transfers-to-vilamoura/
http://www.algarve-minibus-transfers.com/Local Taxis in Vilamoura
(00351) 289 399 0000
289 352 525
