Vidamar Resorts Madeira

⭐ 1 NIGHT OUT OF 7 — WE LEFT AND MOVED TO ANOTHER HOTEL

Booked through Broadway Travel — and one of our biggest holiday mistakes of hotel choice.

We arrived expecting a 5-star hotel and instead found ourselves next to a major building site, complete with a huge crane towering over the hotel. Not exactly the view you picture when booking a 5-star holiday.

Quite honestly, I struggle to understand how this hotel has been awarded a 5-star rating. We have stayed in many hotels over the years, and this is without doubt one of the most poorly designed and confusing hotels we have experienced.

There is very little signage, so finding your way around is something of an adventure. To reach the outdoor pool area, you walk along corridors, take a couple of lifts and basically hope that you are heading towards the sea rather than somewhere completely different. Perhaps they consider this part of the entertainment.

Our room was supposedly an upgrade. If this was an upgrade, I would hate to see the standard rooms.

The balcony sliding door was so difficult to open that it required two people to operate it. The room itself looked tired and dated, with various pieces of furniture that had clearly seen better days — including a drawer that was almost falling off its runners.

The safe battery was completely dead, although an engineer did replace it, so credit where it is due. There was also a distinct shortage of conveniently positioned electrical sockets.

Then there was the bathroom.

At some point in the hotel’s history, someone decided that a hydro bath would be a wonderful addition. Unfortunately, nobody appears to have told them that it might be a good idea to remove it once it stopped working. Instead, it remains sitting there looking rather like a museum exhibit, held together with what appears to be liberal amounts of silicone.

The shower and shampoo dispenser are positioned in such an inaccessible place that you actually have to stand up in the bath to reach them. And, of course, there is no separate shower cubicle.

THE DINING ROOM

Calling it a 5-star dining room would, in my opinion, be rather generous. It has much more of a canteen atmosphere.

There appears to be little or no dress code, with the majority of men turning up for dinner in shorts and T-shirts. Personally, I would expect a 5-star hotel to make at least some effort to create an appropriate evening dining environment.

And then there was the service.

We finished our main course, yet our dirty plates remained on the table for the rest of the meal. In fact, they were still there when we left.

Perhaps this is the hotel’s interpretation of 5-star table service.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast didn’t exactly improve matters.

Poor coffee, tough bacon and food that was barely warm certainly wasn’t what we expected from a hotel advertising itself as 5-star.

Unfortunately, judging by what we experienced, this seems to be regarded as normal.

OUR VERDICT

We had booked seven nights.

We lasted one.

After our first night we decided that we simply could not spend the remaining six nights here and moved to another hotel.

The building site, dated room, bizarre bathroom, confusing layout, lack of signage, poor dining experience and questionable service would all be disappointing individually. Put them together, and it is very difficult to see where the 5-star experience is supposed to be.

Perhaps the biggest attraction of this hotel is its 5-star rating — because unfortunately, that is where the 5-star experience seems to end.

Our second visit. We picked the hotel due to the location - a 30/40 minute walk down into Funchal with good bus links. Also for the swimming pools which also have access to the sea and there are always enough sunbeds and umbrellas for all. We had booked a superior sea view room ( which we had previously) and we're told we had an upgrade but it really wasn't. It was a family room I later discovered which meant there was extra hanging space but no sofa or chairs. By the time I realised this it wasn't worth hassle of complaining. The room was comfortable enough though the safe and air con needed us to request someone to fix them which happened quickly enough. The buffet breakfast was fine but durj G the evening it was a bit hit and miss. Fortunately we paid less for half board than bed and breakfast so it eant an issue. The dine around option helped although the pizza restaurant was also very basic. It's a bit of a "hotel box" with little atmosphere but if you only want somewhere to sleep and good pools then it's fine especially if you get a good package holiday deal. I would stay again but don't expect 5 star