Quinta da Penha de Franca

Stafff were friendly, location is quiet as there is no street noise where hotel is set. Room was fabulous, bed and pillows comfy, nice large balcony, wifi worked well, even at pool by the ocean. Even had a corkscrew to open wine in the room. If you are in the second building though, and don’t want to use that pool, but prefer to use the large heated pool by the ocean, it’s kind of a pain to get to as you have to leave building then walk down a steep road to get to pool. And when you return, you have to all the way around to the front, as the side door will be locked. A simple solution would be to allow card access at this pool. Pool area very large with lots of lounges. Food there decent. Included breakfast buffet was good. Even had bacon and eggs

I was quite shocked at the reviews saying how great this hotel is ? it is one of the worse I have ever stayed at. The staff are not very friendly and often made you feel like you were disturbing them. The rooms are very basic and the bathroom is antiquated (see pics). The whole hotel needs refurbishment I honestly wonder if they are waiting for a takeover from another company. Carpets are threadbare and all the furniture is very old and needs replacing. The beds are very hard and the pillows are dreadful. The breakfast is very uninspiring and the tables are not laid with cutlery etc it is very do it yourself, which considering a lot of their clientele are very elderly, this did surprise me. I saw some guests struggling to get their breakfast, tea, coffee, cutlery etc. My husband and I helped some the guests, while the staff just ignored them. The ground floor sea view rooms are very disappointing, as there is a brick wall which obscures most of the view. This could easily be resolved with a glass balcony. I would suggest to anyone staying at this hotel to request a room above ground floor if you wish for a view. The pool was nice and very clean; however, it was too cold to use. The sunbeds again are very dated and all need to be replaced. Balcony furniture is very basic, white plastic and really needs replacing. The mini fridge in the room is a good size and the prices of drink are not too expensive, however the charge for tea and coffee in the room is ridiculous so we never used this. We never ate at the restaurant, as there are many fabulous places to eat in Funchal, so I can’t comment of the food but the menu did not really excite me. We also never drank in the bar as the one in the hotel where we stayed, shut at 6pm. We tried the bar at the other hotel but no one was there and it looked shut, but again Funchal has lovely bars too. I would say that Funchal is a lovely city and the Madeirans are so friendly. We had a great holiday in spite of if this hotel (we stayed out most of the time and only used it to sleep in) Also the building works next door are very noisy, they started at 8am and this went on all day, so again it was better to go out. I will return to Madeira but I would not return to this hotel and I would not recommend it.