The Wine Lodges

Our holiday was so disappointing that we left five days early and went elsewhere. We came from our favourite nearby hotel to try apartment life, but found ourselves stuck in this apartment for another week. We can’t recommend it, though Funchal itself is wonderful. It looked much better in the marketing, and I doubt An Island Apart will notice or care. We’re in the Malmsey apartment. The location is excellent, but this is in no way a five-star experience. The floors are really creaky, the furnishings tired and worn, and the pillows cheap and lumpy. Road noise is constant. We know it’s Christmas and the area gets noisy, but things usually settle after about 10.30pm. Our two biggest problems were the apartment above and the landlord’s lack of response. Noise from upstairs was horrendous: we could hear anything above a whisper, feel and hear thumping and creaking floors, and hear the main door banging below. Whenever the upstairs flat used the toilet, fluid dripped onto the second bedroom floor. There’s a panel cut into the ceiling that looks like an earlier repair attempt, but the leak continues. These things could be fixed by the owner. On our second night I went up to ask the guests to quiet down because they were making far too much noise at nearly 11pm. Bins being emptied, and homeless people and drunks in the street and park opposite, also made noise in the early hours, at 2am and 4am last night. We’d had no human interaction since booking. When we finally complained through the online Chat, the landlord only offered to speak to the people upstairs. To be fair, they did quieten down a little after that, but nothing else was offered. We weren’t looking for compensation or a refund. Moving us to one of the many quieter apartments nearby might have saved the holiday.