The Residence Porto Mare

We stayed at The Residence Porto Mare which is part of a larger hotel complex. The hotel is beautiful, food lovely and enough variation every night. They had an indoor pool for the cooler days in April and an outdoor pool. Also a spa pool with hot tub. The hotel had a good mix of nationalities meaning that the menu wasn't just catered towards the Brits, which we loved. Room choice though is critical depending on your circumstances. Our room was lovely and the layout perfect. Separate bedroom for the adults and sofa bed in the lounge for our daughter. A lot of the residence rooms face the side of the hotel, which has a noisy bar opposite. The loud music goes on until around midnight. This is fine if you're a couple, because you are out and about yourselves and not getting to bed until then anyway. However, when you have a young child who is in bed by 8pm its a problem. We spoke to reception and they said the hotel was full and they couldn't help. But we mentioned this to our Jet 2 rep not as a complaint, but they asked if we were happy with everything. The rep understood our issue and managed to get us moved to another room a couple of days later. No noise at night. Bliss. I would highly recommend this hotel.

We were fortunate to get an upgrade to a 2 bed apartment on arrival but aside from that we found the hotel to be very comfortable, friendly and well run. Prices were hotel like but not exorbitant and quality (food, drink) was good. There there was a lovely feeling of spaciousness.We were pleased enough to buy a timeshare in it.

The Residence was exactly as described, I made a few requests before travelling and they were all as I requested. The apartment was clean, quiet, the cleaning good, the gardens very well kept, all good.

We had room only.Have stayed before.Rooms very clean with frequent bedding chanced.Rooms need updating, with the cooking facilities rather dated too.Not much wardrobe space or drawers.But the garden room we stayed in was very convenient located in the beautiful gardens.The pools are very clean.Sunbeds to close to each other but plenty of them.We have booked already for next year,we do love the residence in spite of it needing updating .

Top staff, accommodation and location. Grounds spotless, pools never busy. Breakfast and buffet food exceptional. Choice if evening entertainment. Could walk into Funchal centre but bus and taxis available outside reception. Will revisit this hotel.

Disappointing mismatch between the reviews I read before booking and our experience in a recent week long stay at the Porto Mare residence is that the other reviews were written by returning guests who have bought into the time share nature of this hotel. The hotel openly admits that they favour returning guests, who get the best rooms for 10-15% less than we paid, they pay less for food and drink. We were led to believe we had booked a sea front studio. In reality we were offered a dark noisy street facing room above the entrance to the hotel car park. In a normal well run hotel with such a discrepancy in room types there would be a price differential on different room types so you pay more for facilities such as a sea front room and the guest would know what room type they had booked. This did not apply during our stay and we had to put up with the Residence Managers explanation that what he was offering us was the best room he had available. Their version of differential pricing is that first time guests pay more for the worst rooms. If they understood the true nature of this hotel why would anyone stay here for the first time?

This hotel is fantastic. Clean, staff are really friendly. Plenty of restaurants, we ate in most and the food was great, particularly the lamb chops in Alfama. Great location on the front, and an added bonus of a free shuttle into Funchal.