The Residence Porto Mare - PortoBay

Why is this not rated 5 star? The hotel made my husband's 70th a truly memorable experience! One of the best hotels we have ever stayed in

Our stay at The residence was really nice. The pool areas, restaurants, bars, entertainment, the spacious room and the location of the hotel were all perfect.

Excellent accommodation and fabulous gardens. We booked a studio room but were upgraded to a spacious apartment, with balcony and sea view. Shame that the weather was not warm enough to sit outside for much of the time. The need to use 200 characters will deter me from bothering to write any more reviews.

Wir waren zum zweiten Mal in dieser Anlage und kommen gerne wieder. Besonders der sehr gepflegte Garten gefallen!

Positives included: The room was lovely. The service was excellent including the cleaning regime. Gardens were beautiful and very well kept. The spa pool is superb and we enjoyed it when they weren't cleaning the floor with a terribly strong smelling solvent type cleaning system. The location is wonderful and an easy 20 minute stroll to the centre of Funchal where parks cafes and shopping is in abundance. Breakfast buffet was fine and of a usual standard that we find in 4 star hotels. Less positive experiences included: Dinner buffet placed emphasis upon the cold selections. Show cooking was very limited to small portions of fish and meat. No cooking of complete dishes was evident. We were disappointed with the evening buffet and feel the hotel puts emphasis upon their 3 other restaurants where we were allowed only a meagre 17 euro p.p. allowance which would only but a mid range bottle of wine. We thought drinks prices were expensive.

We have a time share at the Residence for a week each March. We love the apartment but this year the peaceful atmosphere that we normally enjoy was disturbed for most of our visit by ongoing maintenance work. Each day when trying to relax on our patio we could hear either drilling or the loud extractor fan next to our apartment. In addition to the very loud & intrusive fan there was a strong smell of resin. My husband complained on the Thursday & was told the drilling stopped on the Tuesday. We had heard it a half hour before so it hadn’t stopped. It was heard once again on Friday. The vent was very noisy & was in use for one & a half to 2 hours at a time. We timed it on the Friday from 3.50pm to 6pm. Whilst I understand maintenance work is necessary & sometimes an emergency it would be good customer service to advise people affected of any possible disruption. A letter through the door explaining what might affect apartments concerned would have been welcomed.This is the first time we’ve been disappointed by our stay at the Residence & hope our remaining years aren’t affected in this way