Ocean Gardens

+ reception staff is very friendly, free shuttle to the city centre is very convenient, the rooftop swimming pool is well maintained and quiet, with a beautiful view over Funchal, clean rooms and towels, free parking - high prices for drinks or food (at the rooftop bar), way too many staff members at breakfast, keeping too close an eye on our every move, terrible coffee, the location: by a busy road (since all terraces are at that side, sitting there is not pleasant), far from the city center, no shops or restaurants in walking distance, the ‘eerie’ feeling of ‘emptiness’ in the hotel (few guests, desolated areas) and last but not least: the umbrellas on the rooftop (see picture). Overall: I would not recommend this hotel, it isn’t cheap and has too many minus’es

I arrive at this Beautiful Hotel..at 1.00 am On private transport..and From the First Impression I new this was what I wanted.. fantastic Vews Friendly staff all the way Tru the hotel.. breakfast lots of choices. Room cleaned. Every day.. transport to Funchal..10xminuts.. swimming pool .. Very cleaned.. bar available all day.. And before I finish.. a big thank you.. To Ana and Helder in the breakfast room Very professional.. with attention to detail on Service.. At reception..again extremely helpful.. Manuel driving the 7xseater in to Funchal every day.. Very polite and helpful... I definitely be back..

I stayed three nights in this hotel. On the first evening, I noticed that the A/C did not work, making the room very stuffy. Each time I turned it on, it ran for about one minute and then the whole thing shut off. I went downstairs (quite a trek; this hotel has a truly weird layout) and explained the problem to the person at the desk. She suggested that I just open the sliding glass door, which would have been risky. Many years ago in France I had a room that was too hot and I did this and woke up with a burglar in my room at 5 a.m., so this was a truly terrible idea. She told me that she could not help or move me because the hotel was sold out but she told me she would see to it that the problem was addressed the next day. I got through the night and the next morning, I made sure to explain the problem to the day person at the desk, who assured me it would be taken care of. I got back to the hotel at 10 p.m. that night after a day of enjoying Funchal and went to my room. SAME PROBLEM! NO ONE HAD FIXED IT. I, once again, went downstairs and explained this to the man at the desk. He told me that someone had gone and looked at it and said it was working and then proceeded to insult my intelligence by asking if I had inserted the card to make sure the power was on in the room. He kept telling me that it was checked and working, which it clearly was not. He eventually gave me a key to a vacant room and told me I could try in another room - in other words, he wanted me to prove to myself that I was too stupid to figure this out, in which case, maybe someone could have helped me. I went to the new room and the A/C worked perfectly. At that point, it was 10:30 at night and, of course, I then had to pack up all of my belongings and move rooms because the staff was too incompetent to address what should have been a very straightforward issue.