BIO Hotel - Hotel Quinta da Serra

The garden around the hotel is marvelous, and breakfast has great variety and quality. The staff were welcoming and helpful, and speak English well. The wellness area looks nice, with a fancy glass roof over the pool, and the WiFi is fast. Those things made the stay worth five stars for me, though I’m not sure the hotel really deserves five stars. The rooms certainly don’t. They feel outdated, with hardly any power sockets. I had to charge my toothbrush in the sleeping area, and there was no socket by the bed for my phone. The TVs aren’t smart, so streaming isn’t an option. After sunset the rooms are very dim, with questionable lighting quality and a mix of 3000K and 4000K lamps. The hotel says it’s eco-friendly, yet still uses old halogen bulbs that consume far more energy than LEDs. The sauna also needs attention. Even with the oven set to 110 degrees, it only reached about 85, because the door lock is broken and half the doorframe has no seal. The benches are dark in places, seemingly from improper use and lack of maintenance. It feels like the sauna is there but not really cared for. The gym seems like a relic from the past. I never saw anyone use it, and even a set of dumbbells and a bench for free weights would probably be better.

I loved the pool and that old grand hotel atmosphere. It’s close to Funchal, so you can be near the city without staying right in it. The buffet breakfast was the best I’ve ever seen.

The food and garden were great, but several things fell short of a five-star stay. The welcome drink wasn’t tasty, and the wellness area felt uncomfortable. The rooms are old, and the receptionists weren’t helpful. Neither the pool bar nor the hotel bar had staff, so we had to call reception or go to the restaurant to get our own drinks.

The main building, grounds, garden, and technical facilities are nice. Still, the place feels soulless. There was no welcome, nobody asked if everything was okay, and no staff offered help. That’s not what I expect from a five-star hotel. Most rooms are in a new concrete building beside the one shown in the ads, and they have a business-style feel.