Padel in Ericeira - who needs surf if there is padelpadel?

Joooking, calm down surferboyzzz. Sorry, but I just like people who prioritise padel over surf 🙃 Over the last years, playing padel has become somewhat a basic social skill to connect with people, I'd argue. Here's all you need to know to have ultimate padel fun in Ericeira:

1. CoolGym vs Santa Marta Park Ericeira padel prices compared
2. How to book a padel court at CoolGym CoolPadel
3. How to book the ocean-view padel court at Santa Marta Park
4. How to find ya padel mates (gangs & tournaments)
5. How to diagnose if you have a clinical padel addiction
6. Don't forget to workout
7. What to do if you get bored of the surfer guy who also plays padel: play in Lisbon
8. What to do if you're actually bored of padel but think you still love rackets: tennis in Ericeira

Need some padel mates?
I'll add you to the padel gangs :)

bomdiachen@erijoy.com

CoolGym vs Santa Marta Park Ericeira padel prices compared

There is 1 major padel place in Ericeira called CoolGym CoolPadel, and 1 minor padel place called Santa Marta Park (but that one has an ocean view). Here are both compared with all the preços:

If you're an absolute padel noob, you probably worry about the basic logistics: Do not. At both padel places in town, when you rent a court, you also can borrow a racket and balls. So whenever you're gonna turn up to your first padel match, bring water and normal sports clothes - that's it, nothing else needed :)

How to book a padel court at CoolGym CoolPadel

Easiest per WhatsApp or the Tie Player app. Regarding the latter, yes, it looks like a barely alive app in the App Store, but it works, you can actually reserve a court in there (except you can just book 1 week in advance). Technically you can walk in and say "I wanna play padel". Practically, you know how hyped padel is, so better book before.

CoolGym has 4 courts: 1 outdoor court, which is the pretty one. And 3 indoor ones under a grey roof, which, let's be honest, looks a bit sad. Cause they put it there in 2026, but I made all my first honeymoon padel memories there with an open sky, but hey. At least in that way we can play padel indoors when it rains in the winter.

Regarding how to get there: don't be surprised that you have to turn off the main street into what seems like a little side street - yes, that's exactly the way to CoolGym. There is a big parking down on the right, plus a few more sneaky parking spots right in front of the gym.

I don't know why they are not updating their Google Maps with pictures and reviews, but they have been existing for quite a few years, and the team is cool: they even wear shirts with “cool staff” written on. I took padel lessons with them for a year and most of the time I had that amazing feeling of “ohh I don't want the lesson to be over, I want to keep learning”. The 1 thing I still think most about from the lessons: Slice, don't smash.

You can also have a post- or pre-padel-gym-session and shower there. Let's not talk about post- or pre-padel-beers. But yes, you can have those as well at their lil cool bar. Are you really that naive to think people join padel to play padel and not purely to have post-padel-beers?

How to book the ocean-view padel court at Santa Marta Park

The easy way to book the ocean-view court is to go to the booking office (Mon-Fri 10am-1pm and 3-7pm, Sat 9am-1pm and 3-6pm). Theoretically it also can be booked online - but you need the full Portuguese package to reserve: NIF, PT-IBAN, MB Way anddd create an account - understanding only Chinese? Yea.

If you have the full package, download the Mafrativa app, and then you can check any time whether the ocean-view padel court is free, tap, pay, easy peasy done.

And booking is only half of it. When you turn up to play, go to the office again and someone will give you the rackets etc. (even outside official opening hours). If nobody is there, call them: +351 967 411 231. Last option in our porpotoire: Have a stroll around the park and look for a worker in a blue T-shirt.

To be honest I have 1 strong opinion: if someone visits you in Ericeira, playing padel with them at the ocean-view court, dipping afterwards sweaty into the ocean and feeding them fish at one of the ocean view restaurants is theeeee premium touri/local experience that they'll never forget. Can recommend.

Fun fact: On the first day I started working on this website, I went for my first ocean-view padel game in the evening at Santa Marta Park :)

How to find ya padel mates (gangs & tournaments)

You have nobody to play with? And Playtomic somehow doesn't do its job in this lil fisher village. Lemme add ya to the padel gangs. While the private padel gangs in town are sometimes active, sometimes not, the padel tournaments which Cool Gym organises do happen all the time & quickly get booked out. They are happening:

- Fridays 7:30 - 9:30 pm men & women mixed padel tournament for €13 with snacks included at the end (I've heard they may have some beers as well)
- Wednesdays 1 - 3 pm men & women mixed padel tournament for €11.50 with a drink at the end. Plus they prioritise signups from women, if they sign up before Tuesday 1pm (ruuuules are rules)

I'll add you to the tournament padel gangs :)

bomdiachen@erijoy.com

How to diagnose if you have a clinical padel addiction

Do you look forward to padel during work, thinking about how badly you will annoy your friendz tonight? Does your focus reach its highest level if you want to “corner” a certain person? Likely you're dipping into padel addiction and just want to deny it for now.

Don't forget to workout

In the likely case of emergency padel addiction, it is advised to keep at least some workouts aka muscles strengthening going, so that you don't get injured while you just want to have some fun.

What to do if you get bored of the surfer guy who also plays padel: play in Lisbon

There is a chance that your addiction will eventually fade out after a few years of padel. But before you give up, be sure it's not just because you're not curious about the people you play with. There appears to be a tendency that the surfer guys who also play padel rather hang out in Ericeira and the business guys who also play padel rather in Lisbon. Can confirm. So if you're curious about the latter:

1) The Young Founders Padel Gang (think marketing/HR/design guys) plays under the big red bridge on Friday evenings, river view, ships passing, planes landing over your head, aka pretty romantic.

2) The Padel & Business Gang is another serious one (think finance bros, lawyers etc.) and plays mostly in the fancy Club 7 in Lisbon

And I don't know if you knew, but there is a €40 monthly card that lets you take any public transport in Lisbon, Eri, all the cute rocky beaches and wherever else you wanna go in the metropolitan region :) If you work remotely, that screams to be your commute substitute: no daily office drag, just a lil happy fridayayay commute to padel. Can recommend.

What to do if you're actually bored of padel but think you still love rackets: tennis in Ericeira

Then you can adjust to tennis - do not touch pickleball, that's only for seniors and US ppl who haven't had their eurosummer yet.

Tennis somehow never gave me the impression that it's easy and quick to learn, although turns out it's not tooo difficult to grasp either (especially not for former padel players). Ofc, I can also add you to the (sometimes sleepy, sometimes active) tennis gang in town. There are two places to play tennis in Ericeira, here they are side by side:

The 2 Santa Marta tennis courts have lovely, lovely ocean view. Just sometimes the booking gets restricted in weird ways and nothing is available after 4pm. However, before 4pm you anyway get a fabulous deal and pay only €10. Who said tennis is expensive? Ocean-view tennis for 10 bucks, excuse me?

BreakPoint has a lovely, lovely booking system. The only suboptimal thing is that you have to check for court 1 and 2 separately. Meanwhile, you just want to play tennis, so who cares which court you take? It's a bit of a gamble, but the one thing you should know is to book 7 days in advance because tennis apparently is getting hyped, cause padel is getting too boring??

One more thing: the Google Maps location of BreakPoint sometimes wants to trick you and shows you a path that does not exist, because BreakPoint is within a gated community. You can only enter from the main street, from the São Sebastião seaside - not from the back side. Just be aware of that, or you will be late to your lovely tennis date.

Whatever you pick, padel or tennis - enjoy it! Plus, we have a range of other gangs in town that you might wanna have a lurk at.