Santa Cruz Village Hotel

we stayed here as part of a two destination trip to maderia after staying here 3 nights we cut short our second hotel stay to go back .excelent service and very clean close to resturants and bars.With the present situation [coronavirus] the lads on the front desk were great and realy helpfull [more so than the airlines] we hope to return in better times. [ps dont let the road put you off as it nearly did me]

We were so fortunate in many ways on our first holiday to Madeira (28th of Feb 2020 to 6th March 2020) and the Santa Cruz Village hotel and its excellent staff had a lot to do with this feeling. My girlfriend and I have been to a different Canary Island for each of the last two years to get away from the Winter weather in London; this year the long range weather forecast for Madeira was much better than for both of them. In my experience, the Portuguese are one of the most hospitable and amicable nations in Europe and the Madeirans certainly seem to have the same value system in regards to making people feel welcome in such a gentle, calm and friendly way. My family on my Father’s side owned and ran UK hotels for more than 30 years. Read into both of the above what you will, but it is my pleasure to write this review and I hope that you will take the time to read my it in full. I would start by mentioning Sean, who is Front of House staff and the first person I spoke to when I rang the hotel from the UK prior to booking, to ask about the different types of room, etc. His English (and probably other languages) is excellent and he was very patient the whole week with answering all of my questions. For example, we were investigating how to do a whole day trip to Porto Santo and after going through all of the boat tariffs, parking options etc, the package that the hotel offered was the best deal. However, I really appreciated the fact that he told us that the beginning of March was not really the best time weather wise to visit Porto Santo. This was the first, but not the last, example of the hotel doing things in the interest of we the guests, as opposed to prioritising making extra money/commission and it was quietly appreciated. There was another lady on the 24 hour reception that was also very helpful, although I did not learn her name. The entire hotel was very clean and well-maintained. I believe we may have had one of the best rooms (407) which was a junior suite on the top floor, with a left side ocean/town view from the balcony. The bed was very good (always important to us) and they even provided a Kettle/cups for the room on my request. From what I could tell, rooms 406 / 306 would also have a good Ocean view. Hard to tell how full the hotel was, but it was a quiet and peaceful environment with mostly couples of varying ages present in the restaurant. Being so close to the airport, we thought the planes noise would bother us but it didn’t, we actually enjoyed watching them. The Flyover is to the right of the hotel however there was very little noticeable noise from that either. The restaurant was a pleasure to be in and we had the same waiter the whole week, Lisandro, who was clearly very experienced and well-trained and “just the right amount of attentive” to our needs. One of the reasons I chose this hotel and a half board option was that they were able to offer vegetarian meals for my girlfriend. I was wondering whether they could offer a different choice for her every evening of the seven nights we were there, as the first two nights she was offered choices from the limited vegetarian options on the a la carte menu, so I emailed the Hotel’s Manager with my concerns. I was impressed that he got back to me within hours, having spoken to the Kitchen staff, with several new options that they would be able to offer for my partner’s approval. It is often difficult in Europe to find vegetarian options unless you mostly eat in Italian themed restaurants, so I gave him the feedback that he asked for a couple of days later on these meals. I said that I hoped that he would continue to offer these in future to other guests as the restaurant is also open to non-guests I believe, and in these changing times Vegetarianism and healthy eating is certainly becoming more popular. He thanked me for “helping us to improve” and overall this was another example of the excellent hospitality. All of the food was fresh with so many of the fruits and vegetables probably grown on the Island. The breakfast buffet had lots of choice and it was all clearly well maintained and replenished in the morning. They also made an effort to keep the hot food options - which alternated every other day -covered and warm and I had these almost every day with a couple of fresh fried eggs which were always presented to me with a smile. We only swam in the pool once, but I should say they I am a sea swimmer (even in the UK) so this one dip was nothing to do with it being unheated. Like the rest of the hotel, it was obviously clean and would probably be an excellent way to cool off in high Summer. Apparently the Madeirans don’t have many chlorinated pools and this was salt water, but not sea water, nor as salty as sea water. We actually had two beach days (on the manmade sand beach at Machico) and swam a lot in the sea there, which was very safe and calm. We also swam in the Lava pools at Porto Moniz at the opposite end of the Island, which was another great day trip. I would recommend doing both of the above while you are there, for the scenery at least, even if swimming is not your thing. Santa Cruz itself is a good place to base yourself in the South East of the Island. I always like to stay in a peaceful place and go and find activity when I want it, as opposed to it being on my doorstep and not being able to get away from it. It is less than 2km from the airport and less than 20 from Funchal and we hired a car. I am glad we didn’t take TravelRepublic’s website package option for an airport transfer as this would have been hugely expensive, as other reviews have said elsewhere. There is a bus stop close to the hotel and the the hotel does a very reasonable shuttle/minibus service to and from Funchal at time of writing. The hotel has an underground car park with only about 10 spaces so if you want to use this, I suggest ringing the hotel to reserve one of these if possible. Take your time entering and using this as it is a tight fit sometimes, but you can get the lift right from it to your floor, as long as you have your programmed key card. I would also suggest a small but powerful enough hire car to cope with the often steep roads in Madeira, if you plan to use one. I believe that the way these reviews are often ended is, “Would we stay there again?” Well, I am at an age (45) where I want to see as many different places in the world as possible while I can, but I will say they I would definitely recommend the Santa Cruz Village hotel to anyone I know that asked me about going to/staying in Madeira. We could have easily been in Madeira for another week and still had lots more to do/see so I would like to visit again in the future. I wish them all every success, thank you again.

I'm a little late with this review as my 11-night trip was in December 2019, but I wanted to do a quick write-up to say a huge thank you to the wonderful staff at the Santa Cruz Village Hotel. This was the second time I've booked at the Village Hotel and yet again the service was excellent and the staff were warm, welcoming and extremely helpful. I was also kindly upgraded to a junior suite which I was very grateful for. I really can't recommend the Village Hotel enough!