In the summer of 2018, my friends and I spent a week at the Dreamsea Surf Camp in Portugal. In this post, I recap our experience.
If you want to see some images I took in Portugal, look here.
Getting to the Camp
Dreamsea offers a collection service. They either pick up the people from the airport Lisbon or at the train station at Grândola.
My brother and I came from the South (Porto Airport) we decided to get picked up at the station in Grândola. We had to wait an hour to get from the train station to the camp because they had booked an eight-seat bus instead of a 50 seat bus. So the driver had to go from Dreamsea to the airport and back multiple times because all the people didn’t fit in the small bus.
Camp
When you are in the camp, it feels like being in paradise. It is located in a sparse forest close to a cliff overlooking the ocean. This is a fantastic spot for watching the sunset, and at night it is perfect for stargazing. The ground is covered with sand. So be prepared to walk around in flip-flops or barefoot most of the time. The sand gets everywhere. If you are not careful, it will soon be even in your bed.
The location as described above is very nice but in the middle of nowhere. This makes it really difficult and practically impossible to get to shops outside the camp. Luckily the surf camp is at the grounds of Camping Gale. They are operating a small supermarket. But in general, it is not necessary because in the standard package everything is included.
The team consists primarily of young and exciting people from all around the world. As most of them only work a few hours a day, they are surfing with the guests during the day. When I was there, it was not uncommon to surf between the cook and the yoga teacher. They also party with the customer until late at night. This comes with the price that they are tired in the morning as well. Our yoga teacher missed our morning yoga session because he overslept.
Not only the team also the guests at Dreamsea are young, easy-going people from all over Europe. On the other hand, there is usually no contact with the people living on the Camping Gale.
There are three possibilities if you book your stay: Sleeping in your tent, Glamping and Glamping Plus.
I think the first one is straightforward. You bring your tent and set it up on the campgrounds. If you want to go to bed early, you can set it up far away from the main area so you can sleep in peace. The main problem with this option is how to get the tent to Portugal. Probably it is more expensive to bring it with you by plane than get one of the other options.
Then there is Glamping. Here you do not need to bring your tent. They are already set up and are pretty spacious. They are located around the central area. This is good because you do not have to go far to get breakfast and dinner. It is also lovely as you can pick things up you forgot in the tent (Eg. sunglasses). The drawback of always being close to where the action is, that you are always close to where the step is. The party goes on until midnight, and until then, it is loud all of the time. The toilets and showers are about 200 meters from the campsite and belong to the Camping Gale.
There are also some tents that are of the category Glamping Plus. This is the option my friends and I took. This is the “premium class.” It has a few key advantages. First of all and probably most importantly, the Glamping Plus people have their own toilet and washbasin. This doesn’t sound very interesting, but it is lovely. The people of the other categories have to walk about 200 meters uphill to get to a toilet or to a water fountain. As they are only used by 15 people or so and they are cleaned regularly, they are much nicer than the others. Also, not having to walk for 5 minutes to brush your teeth is an excellent advantage as well. (PS I know these are all first-world problems.)
The Glamping Plus area is a bit out of the way, so there is a much quieter atmosphere. The tents are larger and even have a small balcony. Some even have a balcony directly overlooking the ocean. This is nice to dry your wet things and also have to have a nice drink in the evening. Another advantage of going for PLUS is food. While the Glamping People get an all-you-can-eat buffet in the evening, the Glamping plus people get a three-course dinner served by some friendly waitresses at their table in a quieter eating area. It was very delicious and excitingly different every day. In my opinion, if you are a bigger group, it is entirely worth it paying a little more money for glamping PLUS.
When we arrived, our tent was clean. The biggest problem was keeping it this way. As mentioned above, the ground is covered with fine sand, so we had to keep the sand out. Otherwise, we could have built a sandcastle in our bed by the end of the week. Another thing we did not think about at first is that, of course, the tents are positioned between trees. Otherwise, it would have been unbearably hot. This comes, of course, with the fact that there are insects living in these trees. If you keep the tent open all of the time, you will soon find some insects on the ceiling of the roof. This goes probably without saying, but Dreamsea is not the ideal destination for Arachnophobes.
As we are already in the 21st century, there are Electrical Outlets in all the tents. So smartphones can be charged quickly. But the camp does not offer WIFI. For people with mobile contracts, this is no problem because there are no roaming tariffs anymore.
Surfing/Beach
When you go from the camp in the direction of the beach, you stand on impressive cliffs. From there you can overlook a shire endless sandy beach with only a few people on it. To get from there to the sea, you have to go down a pretty steep path. As access to the beach is a little challenging, it might not be the best for small children. If you want to go surfing, you have to carry the board this path from the camp. I do not understand why there is no container on the beach where the boards could be stored. This would make it much more manageable.
First of all, I have to say if you only want to come to Dreamsea Surf Camp to learn how to surf you might be disappointed. The Beach Galé-Fontainhas is only suitable for surfing during an about 4 hours a day window. This is because it has a steep sand profile, which makes it not suited for surfing during high tide. And even during this period, the waves are not very consistent. We could not surf for two days when I was there because there were no waves at all. But at least we had some good days. Some people had already been there the second week, and they told me that they could not surf at all the week before. Instead of the practical surf lessons, we had some theory talks, and once, we did “sandboarding.” All the surf teachers were very nice, but this could not make up for flat water.
The next problem is the lack of equipment (in good condition and the correct sizes). They always write that everyone can borrow the equipment at any time, but they do not say that there is not even enough equipment for all guests. So the courses are in two shifts. The people of the first shift have to give the boards to the people in the second shift. So if you want to learn something at all, take the intensive course. During course hours, it is guaranteed that you have access to aboard.
Other things to do
Besides the main activity of surfing, there are countless other things one can do. The camp offers a wide range of activities ranging from Volleyball and table tennis to horseback riding and yoga. Once a week there is the possibility to go on a trip to Lisbon. At the Camping Gale offers a swimming pool and a football court, and as the main participants are about 20 years old, it is only logical that there is a party on the beach every night.
But there are also a lot of possibilities to relax. There are comfortable hammocks and chairs to chill in. At night I loved lying in the sand and watching the stars going by in the sky.
Conclusion
Finally, I can say if you want to have a great time with cool people, the Dreamsea Surf Camp Portugal is a great holiday destination. But if you are seriously interested in learning to surf, you should probably look for another location.
If you take Glamping Plus, it is worth the buck. There are even some coupon codes out there that would make it even cheaper.
Of course, we were there during peak season (the first week in July), so the shortage of boards might not be that big of a problem most of the time.