Serious safety and service failures at Numa Anjos Lisbon, and a broader pattern of unresponsiveness from your digital support during the stay.
In the early hours of 25 June, a fire alarm was triggered at the property. The alarm sounded for over 30 minutes. My group and other guests evacuated the building and gathered outside. I understand that Numa operates as an unstaffed, digital-first property — that is the model we booked, and I am not complaining about the absence of on-site staff itself.
My complaint is that the digital support which is supposed to replace on-site staff, and which Numa advertises as available 24/7 across the website, the Trip.com listing/booking confirmation, the in-room welcome guide, and the app/check-in instructions, was completely unreachable during an actual emergency!
During the alarm and evacuation, WhatsApp — the primary digital contact channel — received no response whatsoever. No one from Numa made contact through any digital channel while the situation was unfolding. Several guests called emergency services directly because there was no way to reach Numa. No fire authority or emergency personnel arrived on site during this period either. They claimed to have security check the property and coordinating with authorities during the absence of active support - we saw no single soul present. We wonder how they checked the safety? The alarm went off itself and guests just went back in without hesitation.
The first communication we received from Numa was an email sent around 3:20am — hours after the alarm, and well after the situation had already resolved itself on its own, with zero digital support from your team at any point during the actual emergency!! They said they sent both SMS and email. This is the biggest failure of security protocol - some guests sleep with their phones in silent mode, or switched off or with ear-plugs on like us. Luckily my partner heard the alarm and able to wake me up in time for the evacuation!
This was not an isolated incident. It is consistent with a pattern of unreliable response times from your team throughout this stay:
• When we requested a room change due to a noise issue (even though requested at the time of booking but told it is automatic assignment), WhatsApp told us an agent would reach out within approximately 15–20 minutes. The actual response came roughly 2 hours later.
• When we reported an air conditioning issue of a new room, it similarly took longer to receive any response. And later they accessed our room unannounced even though I asked specifically for the time of check up.
Taken together with the fire alarm incident, this shows that the 24/7 digital support Numa advertises does not function as promised, even for routine requests, let alone emergencies. The fire alarm is simply the most serious example of a problem that recurred throughout our stay!!
The core issues are:
1. Total unresponsiveness on WhatsApp during a 30+ minute active fire alarm and evacuation.
2. No digital contact or guidance of any kind while the emergency was happening
3. No coordination with or follow-up from emergency authorities, despite guests calling them directly. (it seems their alarm is not linked to authorities?)
4. A delayed, after-the-fact email as the only acknowledgment of the fire alarm — sent only once the situation had already resolved.
5. A direct contradiction between the “24/7 guest support” promised at every booking touchpoint and the repeated, significant delays we experienced for the room change request, the air conditioning issue, and most critically, the fire alarm emergency.
For a property built entirely around remote/digital guest support replacing on-site staff, this is not a minor service lapse — it is a recurring failure of the core mechanism guests are told to rely on, with the fire alarm being the point where that failure became a genuine safety issue.
