Allegro Madeira - Adults Only — Hotel in Funchal

Some pros, mainly cons, and questionable “customer service” to go with it. If your idea of a holiday is to spend a week next to a building site, this is the place to come.

We stayed for a week here.

Cons: • Unclean and run-down rooms; we had ants crawling around in ours, the balcony doors were near impossible to open, the TV didn’t work, and there was so little storage for 2 people that we had to live out of our suitcases. On several days we came back to find towels/empty mugs/coffee hadn’t been replaced (I was informed by the hotel that if you want extra coffee sachets in your room other than what is originally provided, you must pay extra! What?!) There was also one instance at breakfast where we saw cockroaches - Madeira is a tropical island though so this may have just been part of the environment.

• Building sites right next door which were active throughout the weekend and very loud. If you’re looking to relax near the pool, I hope you enjoy the sound of men shouting, pneumatic drilling, hammering, and the beautiful view… There had been no pre-warning or acknowledgement of this either, in comparison to my friends’s hotel who apologised for the inconvenience and offered them a daily drinks token as well as some compensation towards their overall payment.

• Car parking for €8 a day, which doesn’t even guarantee you a space.

• Hit and miss with the staff - some perfectly friendly, others very unpleasant. Sadly, one of our first interactions when we arrived was with a lady at reception who was very rude, and the man serving at the rooftop bar must have seen me as his therapist, as he spent 20 minutes telling me how much he hated his job, the customers, the management, and the live music that was setting up. My partner was accused of being a “tree killer” when he was offered the receipt and said yes.

• Poor customer service - having tried to report several issues through the hotel app (which didn’t work) after being too scared to approach the hostile member of staff at reception, I was told by customer service post-holiday that it was my fault for not dealing with the issues whilst there (which I tried to do numerous times but to no avail!) before they flat out ignored me and refused to respond whatsoever.

Pros:

• Nice roof top bar IF you’re able to avoid certain members of staff and if there isn’t live music - we went up one evening and it seemed so formal and more like a concert (and very loud), that we left as we weren’t able to chat. But lovely views otherwise.

• Good breakfast, lots of choice, and generally pretty tasty!

• Staff - though I’ve complained about some, some were also very lovely.

• Pool area IF there weren’t horrific building works surrounding.

Madeira is a beautiful island, the people are friendly, the scenery is gorgeous and I am proud to be Portuguese myself. We spent a lot of time out of the hotel exploring the island. But sadly on the days where we wanted to relax at the hotel, this wasn’t really possible and had we known all of the issues that we’d experience (particularly the cleanliness) we would have chosen somewhere else. To add insult to injury, the response from the management has been less than satisfactory, which is a shame, as we plan to return to Madeira next year and would actually have reconsidered staying here had the issues we encountered been acknowledged. Sadly, as some other reviews have mentioned, the hotel seems to be more focused on taking money at any opportunity (charging for coffee sachets, car parking, and not a single compensatory offer regardless of trying to resolve our issues) rather than making amends.

Note: contrary to the hotel’s response, we did not say everything was fine when they contacted us, and explained the issues we were still experiencing, which...

I first stayed here as a solo traveller over xmas 2019 and enjoyed it so much I came back with my partner for Xmas this year.

Check in and reception: as I remembered it, warm, friendly and professional welcome, absolutely no problems at all and taken care of very quickly. Room: we had a junior suite with panoramic sea view on the 10th floor and we loved it! Huge comfy bed, lovely view, mini fridge with complementary drinks, kettle and coffee machine. 2 balconies . Good wifi and well equipped. Gym: everything you need for a basic workout, treadmill, exercise bike, cross trainer, cable multi gym, bench and a good set of dumbbells. Yoga mats, AC, cold water machine and sweat towels plus a view out over the pool. Sauna/Steam room - needs booking at reception. Ideal after a gym sesh, walk or after a dip in the pool. Occasionally need to call upto reception to turn the heat on. Ice machine is a great facility. Swimming pool/patio area- it was December and the outside pool is cold so be brave and get in there, you'll soon get over the shock and if you get cold, nip to the wellness centre and have a warm shower, sauna or steam. Very relaxing area with plenty of sunbeds. Breakfast - Vegan: fruit juice , teas and coffee , choice of soya or almond milk, good range of fruit, cereals and seeds. Various bread options, hash browns, mushrooms, beans, sautéed vegetables . Only addition we would ask for would be vegan butter or margarine. Non vegan: all the above, eggs boiled, fried or choice of omelette made to order, pancakes, local sausage and bacon, pastries. We really looked forward to our breakfast each day and finished off with a coffee and pastry out by the pool , perfect start to the day.

Hotel staff: Reception Desk : always cheerful, polite and helpful but we must say a special thankyou to Kelly who always seemed to be working when we needed help or advice and always made a wonderful effort to look after us whether we needed directions , bus times or even help with Portuguese phrases. A credit to the Hotel. Breakfast Staff : always working hard to keep the servery well stocked, the tables clean and tidy. Often very busy and occasionally appeared stressed but always friendly and helpful when they had a spare moment. House keeping staff : our room was beautifully prepared when we arrived and was kept spotless throughout our stay. 10/10 for the cleanliness standard.

My only negative comment is about the barking of dogs in the residential properties between the hotel and the sea. This is titally out of the control of the Hotel Management but woke me up a couple of times and annoyed me occasionally in the day time when I sat on my balcony. Hopefully the dogs owners will sort this as it went on for prolonged periods on a couple of occasions. Overall, we loved our stay at the Allegro and would happily book the same room for the same time next year, Well done Allegro , keep up...

Just got back from 5 nights at this hotel. Honestly very good hotel, the rooms are quite modern and lovely and clean, the cleaners did a fab job with the daily cleaning as well. As you wonder around the hotel it all appears very well maintained. Good location, a bit far to walk into the centre of Funchal but there’s a bus stop just outside so super easy to get around. Also lots of restaurants nearby and little shops, there’s the lido at the bottom of the hill as well. Near a fairly busy road but we didn’t find this to be an issue overnight. The breakfast was pretty good, decent variety I’d imagine everyone would be able to find something they’d enjoy there. The fried eggs and the personalised omelette station was fab. The staff were all super friendly and willing to help you, very attentive. I’m not sure if it was just the time of year but there was always sun loungers available by the pool no matter the time of day, only downside was there’s nearby construction which was a bit loud but not a fault of the hotel. There’s QR codes and little buttons to push by the loungers for ordering drinks however we couldn’t get this to work so we just went into the bar to order our poolside drinks. Shoutout to the rooftop bar, lovely experience and the staff Javier and Andrie took fabulous care of us, they remembered our order and always had a smile to greet us. Only issue we had while staying was that our safe stopped working which was unfortunate as it meant we had to carry our passports around with us and we felt a bit uneasy as we had to leave very expensive camera equipment in the unlocked safe. Nothing was touched though and it was really a minor inconvenience and a shame they were unable to fix it during our stay. Another good point is you can pay to use the car park so we were able to hire a car for multiple days and feel safe leaving it parked overnight for a reasonable price. Overall a great hotel which I would...