Terra Nostra Garden Hotel

Terra Nostra Garden Hotel sits in the Furnas valley on São Miguel, part of the Azores since 1935, and is built around the Terra Nostra Botanical Garden and its mineral-rich thermal pool. The pool, fed by the island's volcanic springs, is the hotel's signature feature and the reason most travelers end up here rather than just passing through Furnas for the day.

This is a hotel-spa in the full sense: there's no separate day-pass ticket for the thermal pool or spa facilities, and access is limited to overnight guests. Rooms range from compact Art Deco doubles to garden-view suites and a larger Botania Hall suite with its own terrace, and rates sit in the upscale tier.

Beyond the pool, the property runs on its restaurants — Azorean cooking built around the local Cozido das Furnas, plus a sushi bar serving Japanese dishes paired with Azorean fish. There's also meeting space for small business groups who want a quieter setting outside the main towns.

Guest reviews consistently single out two things: unrestricted access to the garden and thermal pools during the stay, and attentive staff who go out of their way to sort out issues. Rooms are described as spacious and comfortable, breakfast is well-regarded, and the overall experience is pitched as closer to a retreat than a standard hotel stay. Anyone weighing this spa should think of it less as a spa you book into for an afternoon and more as a destination stay where the thermal pool is simply part of what's included.