Porto Mare

Would definitely recommend this hotel. Food good, staff friendly and helpful and swimming pools really good.

Our second stay at the hotel. This time for 9 days. It’s a lovely hotel in a great location with lots of restaurant options nearby. We prefer this location to the old town. I booked our room and put a specific request simply for a high floor. We booked the Superior Sea View room. Upon arrival the welcome was lukewarm at best. We were not told where breakfast was nor the times, nor the location of our room. We wondered around a bit and finally discovered our room was one floor DOWN from the reception! We went and took a look. The sea view was a small strip of sea peaking above the view of the pool bar roof. The noise there would have been awful. We immediately went back to reception to say we were extremely unhappy with the room. I reiterated I had put in a special request for a high floor and was asked did I put that to the reservation team. I confirmed yes I had and I had a confirmation back. Some tapping on the computer ensued and we were told she could swap the room. Someone else had been allocated a room who had no request for a high floor. This room was on the 5th floor. The receptionist explained there had been an issue when our room was allocated. We then tried to sort parking. Last time we stayed here there was free parking. Now there is outdoor parking at $10 and indoor parking at $15 per night. This seems excessive. We were immediately told the cheaper option was ‘full’ . We agree to pay for the first 3 nights in the indoor parking until we could figure out any other options. Over the next few days we noticed multiple empty spaces in the outdoor parking. However when asking if there was now an available space we were told no. Apparently the Porto Mare has only 10 spaces in the outdoor parking with the rest going to the Eden Mar next door. So if those spaces are not used they could sit empty. Seems crazy since it’s all part of the same property. I had a survey a few days in and raised both these issues and the reply was less than satisfactory. I think they call it gaslighting. I was told the original room 2101 was one of their most popular seaview rooms. Utterly ridiculous claim. It’s a roof view room. And that the outdoor parking may look like it had lots of spaces but it didn’t really. Very poor management response. Anyway in terms of the room - nice spacious room. Bit tired now with the bathroom door splintered and damaged at the bottom and some mould between tiles. Needs a spruce up. Very comfortable beds, nice balcony with comfortable seat and a table. Nice sized wardrobe but not enough hangers. It has a safe. No iron though which is a real pain. Nice desk with mirror and chair to do hair and make up etc. Breakfast - huge selection of quality food. They will make omelettes to order. Loads of choice. They bring coffee in jugs to the table but it’s normally lukewarm not hot. There are machines to make coffee as well. Most staff very friendly and helpful with a couple of noticeable exceptions of miserable colleagues who really disliked customers. You can sit inside or outside for breakfast. Pool - sigh, the usual issues with sun beds. We only popped out a couple of times to spend a few hours. Tons of sun beds with towels and no one appearing on them for at least 3 hours. Apparently the hotel removes towels but we didn’t see this happen. So a lovely hotel but I have to rate on facilities and service. And we were left disappointed on the latter.

Just returned from a 10 day stay at the Porto Mare. Our first visit to Madeira. We booked direct with the hotel for a superior sea view room and requested a high floor. On arrival we were pleased to find we had one of the best rooms on the 5th floor with a gorgeous view over the pool, grounds and sea. Good size balcony with table and two chairs and a hanging drier for swimwear. It was my husband’s birthday while we were there and although we didn’t say anything they obviously noted the date from his passport and on the day they left a bottle of wine in ice with a nice note. We thought this was a very nice touch. It was also our anniversary a few days later but we again didn’t mention it as it would look like we wanted more wine! The beds were really comfortable and the linen good quality and spotlessly clean. An amenity kit in the bathroom had useful items in and the hairdryer was a good Bosch one. Rituals hand wash, lotion and shower gel, again lovely. Maid service every day did a good job. Breakfast for me was fine as I only really had cereal, fruit and toast. The toaster was a bit temperamental, sometimes ok after one go through other times it took 3. As we went to breakfast a bit later there wasn’t a queue so could stand there putting the bread through without holding anyone else up. My husband was disappointed with the hot stuff as he didn’t like the sausages and the bacon was often cold. I feel the hotel let its self down with the state of the carpets, specially outside the portofino bar, it was badly stained. The grounds are kept in a lovely condition however. We didn’t use the pool until late afternoon as we would go out exploring after breakfast but we always found sun beds, not necessarily where we would like (in the shade) but could usually move around later on. I would say that not every member of staff were friendly in fact some were quite brusque but this didn’t spoil the holiday as we usually just laughed to ourselves. The local pingo doce had some exceptionally rude staff which did annoy us tho as we greeted everyone in a friendly manner to start with but gave up after a couple of days. The hotel is in a good location with lots of really good restaurants around, never judge a book by its cover as some didn’t look much from outside but served very good food. Anyway we had a good first visit, unfortunately didn’t do as much as we had planned due to a couple of days illness so maybe we will return one day!