Poca da Dona Beija, Furnas: Tickets, The 1h30 Clock And The Night Pools

The official site is unusually good on mechanics. It spells out the online-only ticketing, the arrival-order entry, the 1h30 maximum stay, the price split, the fee sheet and the pool rules in plain terms.

What it does not carry is a history section this guide could verify. No founding year, no origin story, no dates are published on the pages consulted, so none are printed here. What the site does establish is the water: four pools of ferrous, iron-rich thermal water at about 39°C, with night lighting as the feature the evening price buys.

One practical domain note. The old address pocadonabeija.pt no longer resolves. The live site is pocadadonabeija.com, with the double d, and bookings run through bookings.pocadadonabeija.com. Anything linked to the old domain will fail. For what else the valley offers around these pools, see the Furnas guide.

The four thermal pools

The bathing area is four pools of ferrous, iron-rich thermal water at around 39°C. The format is wade and soak rather than swim: swimming and diving are not allowed, so you step in, find a ledge or a wall and sit. The iron content is the reason for several of the rules elsewhere on this page, from the swim-cap recommendation to the ban on taking the mud and clay home. Water at 39°C is hot enough that 90 minutes feels right for most people, which is exactly what one ticket buys.

There is no lap space and no depth for jumping, and the venue makes no pretence otherwise. The water runs about 39°C in iron-rich (ferrous) supply, warm enough that the 90 minutes pass quickly and the coldest feature on the deck is the rinse.

The night slot

From 18:00 the price rises to the evening band and the garden switches to its night lighting. The last entry is 21:30 and everyone is out of the pools by 22:30, with the gates closing at 23:00. The evening entry exists because the pools after dark are a different experience: steam lit from below, cooler air, quieter valley.

It also concentrates demand, since the evening slot is the fuller one. If you arrive at 21:29 you still get a full 1h30 out of the ticket, so the late window is short on daylight but generous on soak time for those who plan it. The pricing makes the split explicit: an adult entering until 17:30 pays $13.75 (€12) and from 18:00 pays $18.34 (€16), so the venue itself prices the dark.

Both entries buy the same 1h30 stay.

The garden setting on Lomba das Barracas

The address is Lomba das Barracas s/n, 9675-044 Furnas, on the slope above the village. Parking is listed among the venue's services subject to availability, and no capacity or price for it is published, so treat a space as likely but never guaranteed at peak hours. The site itself publishes the address only and no GPS coordinates, so navigation apps are doing their own geocoding.

The garden format means paths, planting and terracing between the pools rather than a single concrete tank, which is part of why the deck fills up in the evening slot.

The first clock is the day. The venue opens every day, Sundays and holidays included, from 08:30 to 23:00. The last entry is 21:30 and the pools are cleared by 22:30. Over the holidays the schedule shrinks: on 24 and 31 December the hours are 08:30-16:00, on 25 December it closes entirely, and on 1 January it opens late, from 11:00 to 21:30.

The second clock is the ticket. Every ticket carries a maximum stay of 1h30, and there are no timed slots or session times: you queue in order of arrival and enter when the people ahead of you have gone through. A second 1h30 ticket can be bought online like the first and validated at reception to extend the soak.

On crowds, the honest framing is this. The venue publishes no capacity figures and no busy-hour data, so precise numbers cannot be quoted. What is structural is that the evening band from 18:00 carries both the higher price and the fuller deck, because night is the slot most visitors want. Early morning and mid-afternoon before 17:30 are the calmer bets, and they cost less. Seasonal context for planning the rest of the trip is in the best time to visit guide.

The entry price is not the whole cost. The venue rents towels and lockers, sells showers and caps, and takes cash deposits on the rentals. The full sheet is below.

The fee sheet

The two lines that matter

Bring cash for the deposits. They are charged per item, refunded in cash when you return the towel or empty the locker, and the shower machine takes coins. The swim cap is recommended rather than compulsory because the iron in the water can permanently discolour light or dyed hair.

Jewellery may also discolour, so it is worth leaving metal pieces in the locker.

The official site publishes a short list of pool rules, reproduced below exactly as tabulated on the info page.

The rules

The two lines that matter

Two of these deserve a beat. The wade-and-soak rule defines the whole experience, since the pools are for sitting in water at 39°C, not for exercise. And the mud rule exists because the ferrous clay stains, so filling a bottle with it is off the table.

For the contrast, the valley's other ticketed pool takes a different approach: Terra Nostra sells a whole garden day with no clock on your stay, while this venue caps the water and lets the clock run.