"We stayed here for a week in July & went All Inclusive. The hotel is centrally located & both the pebble & sand beaches are with a couple of minutes walk.
We found that the rooms were clean & were cleaned every day.
The food was only alright, some things were not labelled so you didn't know what you were eating.
I have to say the standard of customer care is almost non existent! From the minute we arrived to the minute we left. There was no welcome to our hotel, enjoy your stay, nothing.
Because we were All Inclusive we wore a white wrist band to show the staff that we were All Inclusive. The older man that was usually at the bottom of the stairs to the restaurant welcomed most people who didn't have wrist bands. We were completely ignored by him every time we entered. The rest of the staff in the restaurant were mostly pleasant. I'm not saying I want people to be falling all over me but I do expect staff to be pleasant, friendly & helpful. Unfortunately that's not the case with the majority of people working here.
On one occasion my husband ordered a drink at the poolside bar that was not included in the All Inclusive & was abruptly to "no". No explanation, so my husband pointed at the bottle & said but it's right there & he was told by the lady serving it's not on All Inclusive. Fair enough. But All Inclusive means local beer & spirits, minerals & meals. She could have explained that there was no alternative to the drink he wanted.
To be fair there is no explanation of the All Inclusive package, I didn't realise there was ice cream at the bar until the last day when I saw someone else getting some. There is a menu for the All Inclusive drinks that are available but it's not great! I asked for sangria one night, I watched the lady making it, she poured out a white wine & poured a reddish liquid into it & handed it to me. It was absolutely disgusting!
On our last night we went to reception to order a taxi to bring us to the airport at 4.30am. We asked if we could get something to eat at that hour before we left & we were told we could have a packed lunch that we could pick up at reception before we left.
The next morning we arrived at reception were told very abruptly that the taxi was waiting for us outside. There was no how was your stay, nothing!!! When I asked about the packed lunch he again very abruptly said we needed to order it before 6pm so there was no food made for us. OK, so nobody told us that. The guy who we dealt with the night before didn't tell us that, he was the one who said we could have packed lunches. He should have let us know that we were too late to order!!!
Francisco who helps book excursions & does some activities by the pool is brilliant, very friendly & helpful & fun.
Another thing to note. When we got into the taxi at 4.23am the meter was already running, we had booked it for 4.30am. We got to the airport at 4.27am & was charged €20!!
All in all we didn't have a great experience at this hotel, it was like the staff just couldn't be bothered. Which is a shame, because of this I would only recommend people stay here if they are not going to spend much time there, if it's used as a base. Don't waste money on the All Inclusive there are lots of lovely restaurants within walking distance who staff are a lot more friendly & welcoming.
Medeira is a beautiful place but we were very disappointed with this hotel."
