Getting up at 6.30 am to shiver on the shoreline might not be your idea of five-star luxury, but at Pine Cliffs Resort on the Algarve, the Serenity Spa brand is taking wellness to new levels. Temperature levels, that is. Maria, the director, swims every morning in the Atlantic surf, and invites you to do the same. The brisk off-season temperatures are a training session for the big freeze to come, a session in the Serenity Spa’s new Cryogenic Bath.

Cryotherapy – cold water immersion – has been shown to stimulate circulation, reduce inflammation, and accelerate muscle recovery, so it’s the perfect complement to the wellness offering at Pine Cliffs which, like everything at this luxury Algarve resort, is above and beyond the normal. Tennis courts? Think Annabel Croft Tennis Academy. Football pitch? Think training facilities so advanced they’re used by the England women’s team, and Ronaldo’s Al Nassar.

Falésia beach, part of a stretch of yellow sand almost six kilometres long below the tree-lined cliff that gives the resort its name, is no exception to the above and beyond rule at Pine Cliffs. It’s not just a Golden Flag beach, meaning it has achieved the highest standards of cleanliness and environmental management for five consecutive years, it was also named the best beach in the world by Tripadvisor users in 2024.

Looking down at it from the Mirador Champagne Bar as the sunset turns the clay cliffs a deep shade of red, it’s easy to see why. The Mirador itself is one of the coast’s great sundowner spots: a timber-decked terrace shaded by trees in the day, then glowing with lanterns at night. Order a flute of champagne, or local Algarve wine, and watch as the last light ignites the Atlantic. The view is pure theatre, and the drinks list is as carefully staged.

The wellness theme at Pine Cliffs runs as deep as the beach between the cliffs (Don’t worry, there’s a glass-sided elevator to make your way down in, if you don’t fancy the staircase, though Maria and her trainer use the wide wooden staircase as a warm-up for their morning plunge). Across the 15 restaurants, cafes, and bars, healthy eating and drinking options abound, and can be recommended by the same personal trainer who gives you your assessment and fitness plan for your stay.

Accommodation follows the same pattern of superlative standards. A simple hotel room? At Pine Cliffs that means Moorish arches, terracotta tiles, and hand-painted azulejo murals above the beds. The resort offers a variety of options for types of stay. There’s the Pine Cliffs Hotel, where you can rent the Neptuno Presidential Suite with its dining area, and separate living area, but even the standard rooms are far above ‘standard’. There’s also an option of serviced apartments, which are located in a more secluded area of the resort. These offer more privacy and space than the hotel, while Pine Cliffs Village has spacious townhouses and villas with indoor and outdoor living areas, located near the golf course for those who are prioritising getting their swings in.

The dining follows the same principle. Breakfast at Jardim Colonial is less a buffet than a banquet — a central cooking island groaning with hot and cold, sweet and savoury, while chefs whip up eggs to order. It’s the sort of breakfast you need to be dragged away from, only to return for a second round. At dinner, our group was served a traditional Cataplana, the Algarve’s signature seafood stew, presented in gleaming copper pans and rich with the flavours of the ocean just beyond the cliffs.

After yoga at the ACTIVE studio, I found myself at the Clubhouse terrace, overlooking the golf course with a club sandwich so big it could have fuelled me for another round of vinyasa — thick layers of chicken and bacon wedged between soft bread that disappeared faster than my muscles recovered.

Whether it be for a weight management program, detox, fitness, yoga, Pilates, a Serenity Spa retreat, or even the Bootcamp Insanity classes, inspired by military training, which will immerse you in nature by having you jump logs, crawl across the grass, and swing from monkey bars as the Atlantic waves roll onto the beach nearby, Pine Cliffs offers activities perfectly aligned to the wellness theme, and tailored to your individual fitness assessment and needs. This tailoring was evident in the beautiful sunset yoga session we took part in inside the cool and well-equipped Pavillion overlooking the lush grounds of the golf course. Our instructor noted our individual abilities (and lack of abilities) as well as the fact that we’d been on an arduous bike road through the back roads of the Algarve that day – organised and run by the resort – and adjusted the session as a whole to fit, while also making sure there were variations of each position just right for each person’s flexibility and needs. Again, not just yoga, but Pine Cliffs yoga, above and beyond.

If just the sound of all that activity leaves you exhausted, the spa’s thermal oasis is designed for restoration as much as challenge. Herbal and Himalayan salt saunas, a Turkish bath, Kneipp pool, hydrotherapy pool, outdoor jacuzzi and sensory showers — all lined up like stations on a circuit of relaxation. Here, you swap out log jumps and cryogenic plunges for slow exhales and warm stone benches, and once again discover that Pine Cliffs doesn’t just do wellness, it redefines it.

Pine Cliffs Resort is just over thirty minutes’ drive from Faro Airport. Albufeira with its Old Town is fifteen minutes from the resort by car. Find out more at www.pinecliffs.com.

 

Review, by JD Murphy