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.

Such a mixed experience but at best a 4*.

Positives on floor 10 view amazing, room a little tired but fine. Pool area fine plenty of beds and pools good.

Food - speciality restaurants - the Italian and hanging kebab restaurants amazing - we used these 5 out of 7 nights - great food and great service.

The buffet in one word - terrible - breakfast is poor we tried dinner once it was awful - lukewarm food, poor choices, service really bad at best a 3* experience really lets the hotel down. How can they get it so right in other restaurants but not here ??

Reception- on arrival awful we had paid for a private transfer and arrived pre 11 - asked for a glass of water on arrival and was directed to the shop - check in 2pm fair enough, took our number , popped back a couple of times to be rudely told check in is 2pm come back at 2pm! First impressions and all that…

Weirdly during the our stay they were much better when we needed anything.

So in summary some things done really well others poorly - shame if they could sort the problems out could be a decent hotel.