Luxury apartment - The Wine Lodges - Verdelho

Positive: Brilliant location right in the centre of Funchal in the old Blandy's Wine Lodge and municipal gardens opposite the front door with a lovely cafe in it. Really beautiful large apartment (Verdelho) with 2 bedrooms both with double beds. 2 bathrooms a large lounge with a smart TV and a kitchen with a dishwasher and a washing machine. The apartment also has a small balcony overlooking Funchal which is great. The apartment is on the 3rd floor and it also has 3 floors within it, we were very much fitter by the end of our stay !! Negative: Although the staff responded promptly to a few enquiries they were not very helpful and a couple of things reported (eg coffee maker) brocken were not fixed or replaced. Also the showers are prone to flood the bathrooms as the water runs off the shower tray rather than down the plug whole. The bed was too hard for us but that is really personal choice, I would definitely have liked a mattress topper.

Positive: A beautifully laid out apartment with spacious living and bedrooms and kitchen. Very centrally located and fairly quiet (if there is a festival in the main street, you will hear it, but it tends to stop around 11 pm / midnight. You are across from the park, and a short walk to a large supermarket (Poce Dingo) In the shopping centre. Taxi rank is just at the bottom of the road (across from The Ritz). Negative: Not for anyone with mobility or heart issues! There are a lot, and I mean *a lot* of stairs. We stayed in apartment 3 at the very top (no lift) of the building. Even inside the apartment if you go from the living room to kitchen - stairs, from living room to bedrooms - stairs, from bedroom to balcony - stairs. The main problem is the shower rooms. Both have a flat style shower slab that water flows off, on to the floor, and in the case of the shower next to the kitchen, into the hallway with a wooden floor. The drainage is terrible and we had to put towels around the shower to soak up the water. Even at that, we had to take very quick showers. The company was always sympathetic, and sent out maintenance to try and sort it. Also the water system make a high whining noise that's hard to stop, not a sound you want to hear at 3am! However, the company insisted they had dealt with the issue, even though we could hardly use the shower properly due to its bad design. The shower curtain on the top floor shower does not stop the water from going onto the floor. We finally worked a system where we sealed the showers curtain to the glass and wall with water and surrounded it with towels to stop it flooding. Level 1 toilet had water pouring down from upstairs level 2 bathroom. Level 1 bathroom has no shower curtain. Water leaked through to whatever is underneath level 1 bathroom. High pitched noises from water plumbing in both bathrooms. Had to run taps until noise went away. This also happened during the night while sleeping. Spent most of the holiday mopping up water from the showers. I really do not expect this from any accommodation let alone one that costs nearly 4000€. When water taps turned on in bathroom it can be heard grugling underneath the shower drain.

Positive: Good location. Good facilities. Very clean. Negative: Extra charge for additional towels. More onsite would be better. More than one pillow per person would be appreciated.

Positive: The location is awesome and the apartment was very spacious. Beds were comfortable and there was plenty of hot water. If you stay in the apartment with the balcony it is a great place to sit at the end of the day. Additionally, staff were responsive when we had issues. It is worth knowing that you are across from a local park and around the corner from the Christmas market during Christmas time which we really enjoyed, however some people might not enjoy the nightly concerts at Christmas time (typically from about 9 pm to 10 or 10:30 pm). Negative: Unfortunately we were the first people to stay after a renovation and the apartment was not quite ready for guests. There were multiple challenges, however staff were responsive and eventually the issues were fixed. I won't detail the issues because they were addressed and future travelers should not have problems. I will say that I was surprised that no compensation or credit was offered for the amount of issues that occurred and how they affected our time in the apartment. Otherwise we enjoyed the stay.

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Positive: Gorgeous huge apartment over three floors, overlooking lushly vegetated public gardens. The living room alone was larger than most rental properties. We had the top floor apartment with a roof terrace, which was perfect. Nice touch to have a bottle of rose wine and of Madeira waiting for us. Large supermarket (Pingo doce) within 3 minutes walk, plus plenty of restaurants. The weather was just as we hoped for as a mind-winter escape: ca. 19 degrees, sunny and the sea was lovely for a daily swim (nice sheltered cove just by Forte de São Tiago - a 25 minute walk along the sea front). Negative: The fuse blew if you had both a hob ring and oven on maximum, but this wasn't a huge problem as we weren't making large meals.