We have just returned from a week in the Florasol. As per my title, had the room been more comfortable I would have easily given this a 5 star review. The hotel is clean and tidy, the staff work hard and the breakfast options are great. Unfortunately though every night of our holiday was ruined by the fact there was no air conditioning in the room. The daily temperatures outside were 29°-30° and very humid. The bedroom does have a ceiling fan which was nice and I'm sure this will be the reason why there aren't more complaints, but when the apartment is shared by a family of 4, 2 people end up in the lounge where we had a sofa bed and z bed. The temperature was incredible, absolutely no air flow made sleeping difficult. We had to keep the balcony door open overnight which resulted in being eaten alive by mosquitos every night!! I can understand the financial implications of an old hotel having to install air conditioning in every room but as an absolute minimum there should be fans or portable air con units in the room. I don't think I can return to this hotel on this issue alone, I can only describe my feelings toward this as disgust. Other than that, the hotel is ideally situated outside of Funchal centre in a tourist zone that has massive choice of restaurants and bars. We hired a car for 3 days, be aware the hotel does have a small car park at the rear but you need to really be returning to the hotel no later than 15. 00 if you want to secure a space or you will have to fine off street parking. With so many cars on the island this will be difficult. Madeira has seen a tenfold increase in hire cars over the last few years and it's apparent that it is causing issues. But, at least there is some provision for parking and it's free, something which alot of hotels don't provide at all which is good. Other points of note - there are only 2 small lifts for the building, quite often you will wait a while as they are in use regularly by other guests and also staff moving around the building, you may get a better view on a high floor but the view on the 5th and 6th floor is still great and it allows you to use the stairs to access the pool and restaurant on the 4th floor rather than spending time waiting for lifts that always seem to be busy and full. The pool attendant hoses down poolside every morning and works hard, however I did find the practice of hosing the sun lounger cushions bizarre, the older ones in particular just turn into a giant sponge, often at 2 or 3pm, they are still absolutely soaked and unusable. There aren't enough umbrellas on the poolside so you need to get one early, and you will see several ignorant people unnecessarily hoarding them, sometimes 2-3 umbrellas each for 2-3 beds. It's totall ridiculous, especially when they can see families with young children struggling to find shade. But at least you don't have the clowns here that reserve sunbeds at 7am then leave the hotel, the pool attendant will se
46 Reviews