The Cliff Bay

A pleasant week in a wonderful hotel. Our corner room (328) was a bit smaller than we have been used to here, but compensated by two balconies with fabulous sea and mountain views over Funchal and the harbour. Service and routine meals were as one would expect in a top hotel, but fixing a couple of small niggles would enhance the experience even further. Because the BBC wants maximum viewer reach to command higher advertising rates, they make it incredibly easy and highly cost-effective for global hotel chains to carry the channel. Disappointing therefore not to find BBC World (or indeed CNN) on the huge list of unwatchable channels on the hotel TV. Perhaps one to pursue. Equally disappointing was the house wine – especially the white and the rose. Just home to a glass of supermarket plonk which confirmed my view that your wine by the glass was really not very good. Perhaps the sommelier could be tasked with finding a suitable brand at the right price point. But these are minor quibbles – merely a happy guest’s view of what could transform the wonderful to the perfect. Thanks for a great week!

I go to Madeira every year and have stayed in many different hotels. This was clean and the staff were all lovely to us and my autistic son. We had a couple of meals here but we know the area so mainly ate out at our favourite places. Breakfast was good lots of selection. Bar food was good too. The reason for the low stars was because the rooms are dated my son was on a roll out bed that was rather tatty. Our shower wasn’t the cleanest. Bathrobes were falling apart really threadbare. Don’t go hear if your children older than 4 and they want to beable to be children and splash play ball in water or have any floating devices. My 9 year old son who is autistic was told by pool staff that the main pool that is saltwater and chlorine you were allowed to use inflatable and balls and jump in etc but this pool was so salty and full of chlorine and chemicals it was burning my hands just sat on the side of the pool I had to run and rinse them under the shower straight away. My son also jumped in was in 1 minute and had to get out and get under a shower it was hurting his eyes and skin and he had goggles on my partner thought we were exaggerating so he went in and had to do the same. We no longer could go in that pool. So the other alternative was the baby pool on that level. So we had to use the top pool that joins the indoor pool in end. But we were only allowed to swim in this one no ball games no floating devices and no splashing. I explained that my son was autistic and he couldn’t use the other pool but they still said no to any of it. This obviously made it difficult to have fun for children. Why have a main pool that no one was in because it was so unbearable to be in. So we definitely won’t return here. We were even charged for things in the room bar fridge in room when we only used what we were allowed as we upgraded the room to sea view on a higher level and got all soft drinks in room fridge free. We didn’t even have sun loungers on our balcony and only had two chairs even though 3 of us. I do not think it was worth upgrading. I definitely expected the room to be larger. We only had 2 arm chairs in our room so it was impossible to all sit down at once had to sit in the beds if we did sit on the chairs we couldn’t see the tv. So all in all not the amazing experience we expected for a 5 star resort.

A very special Hotel for a very special occasion. Perfect in every way .Will have a piece of our hearts forever