Hotel PortoBay Santa Maria — Hotel in Funchal

POSITIVES: The Porto Santa Maria hotel is a lovely, modern and spacious hotel. It's very clean and well maintained. The hotel is in a good location, close to the cable car station, bus station and market. There are lots of restaurants literally around the corner.

The rooms are well thought through, large, with loads of storage space. The bed was extremely comfortable. There's even a little kitchenette with an almost full-sized fridge.

The hotel grounds are kept very nicely. The pool areas (both inside and outside) are kept clean and well maintained. There are plenty of sun loungers and we never had any problems finding somewhere to sunbathe.

The buffet breakfast is good with lots of choice. You can also have a buffet dinner at the hotel, which is ok, but to be honest we felt we got better value at the many restaurants (even with the hotel's discounted meal deal bundles). We also enjoyed taking in the local atmosphere which you don't get in the hotel.

All the staff are friendly, helpful and professional. They all speak at least 3 languages (Portuguese, English and German. But we also heard French, Italian and even Dutch!)

NEGATIVES: we had a standard room which had a balcony overlooking a small park. There were a few quite dense trees in the park, close to the hotel, which made the room quite dark. It was nice seeing the local men coming together to sit and play cards - the games could get quite animated! What was not so nice was being able to observe a small amount of drug dealing and drug taking (the trees gave cover for these activities from other park users but we had a bird's eye view of it from our balcony. I did talk to the staff at the hotel reception about what we could see; the response seemed to be well rehearsed and scripted: it's a city hotel, inside the hotel is safe, the hotel management has no control over what happens outside of the hotel. As I said it was a small amount and it didn't spoil our holiday. We also felt safe whilst walking through the park and around Funchal.

I would suggest just be aware and, if you can, upgrade to a pool/sea view room.

Madeira is beautiful. The people are friendly and welcoming. We would definitely go back and stay at the Porto Santa Maria hotel and can recommend...

We have previously stayed at the wonderful Portobay Flores in Porto, so had high expectations for our trip to Madeira and our stay at Portobay Santa Maria. Most of the Funchal hotels are a 20 to 30 min walk away from the centre of Funchal and Portobay Santa Maria appealed because it is in the city centre and we were only staying four nights. ||The positives: the hotel is not only central but right on the seafront. Our sea view room was lovely and it was nice to hear the sound of the sea from our room. The room was a good size, the bed was extremely comfortable and everything was clean. The pool is small but the pool area was well maintained. Reception staff were helpful including booking restaurants and taxis for us. ||The negatives: it was mainly the food. The breakfast was surprisingly poor. We could have been anywhere. It was at the standard you would expect for a 3 - 4 star UK hotel. Indeed it was remarkably similar. There was some fresh fruit but also tinned fruit. There were frozen and reheated pastries. There was no cooked to order food. The eggs on the buffet were overcooked and unpleasant. There was no local or sustainable produce: individual portions of butter and jam, individual yoghurt pots, bought cereals. The cheese was nondescript. The coffee option was bought to us in a pot. Some staff were curt, particularly when we said we wanted to wait for an outside table. ||When we booked, the only option available was half board. Had I known the food would be so bad we would not have booked the hotel. Having experienced the breakfast we went to 'have a look' at the dinner. Again, there was nothing freshly cooked. The food was sitting around in the buffet. There was a very limited choice for non meat eaters - pasta with tomato or curry. It was supposed to be a Portuguese night but there was very little that looked specifically Portuguese. The cod was in a heavy cream sauce. The same week last year we went half board in a hotel in Tenerife where the food was infinitely better. ||The complementary water and coffee pods in the room were not replenished during our stay. ||We were sent a survey midway through our stay and then at the end where we commented on the poor food. There has been no follow up to our...

Personally feel this place is a 4.5 but decided to give it a 5 for the algorithm.

Had a positive experience with this hotel from the start. Reception was super easy to deal with, and the staff in general were great with everything. Our room with the Sea View was well worth it. The rooms, like the hotel facilities in general, lack the kind of modern finishes and style you might experience at somewhere like the Savoy Palace, but everything is clean and well-maintained. Soundproofing is very good - I never heard anyone in any other room, and even when outside was busy, it too was heavily muffled.

The location is ideal, especially if it's your first time on the island. You are right in the centre of old town within a minute of exiting the hotel, no need to wait for a shuttle every time you want to grab lunch. Parking is also free if you are staying at the hotel and want to rent a car to travel outside of Funchal.

Facilities are ample. Even with a full hotel, there was always plenty of parking space in the garage, a free table at the bar, the hot tubs and pools were never overly packed, etc.

The regular clientele are older British people, which didn't really bother us because it meant the nights were quiet and we aren't party people anyway. It did mean that sometimes reception was overly busy because you are behind a couple British Boomers who expect the moon. Being an Adults only hotel was also a great plus for us personally.

The only real minus was that we found the breakfast just okay, and in particular the coffee was weak, although there was always ample fresh fruit.

Not the kind of traveler who sees the appeal of going to the exact same location a second time, but if it happened, I think I would consider...