Hotel Praia Dourada

The coffee at breakfast was too strong for me, and the machines could use adjusting. I did have a few great interactions with the staff, including the older woman cleaning, the reception team, and the breakfast worker who unlocked the coffee machine for me. But the rooms don’t meet today’s standards for a 3-star hotel. There was a lot of hair left by previous guests in the bathroom, and ants kept appearing from nowhere from the start, even though we hadn’t left out food. They should spend longer cleaning the bathroom or hire more people if needed. My partner said straight away she’d rather pay more next time.

I found the older building and furniture fine for my taste. The bed was comfortable, not too soft, and the bathroom had a bathtub and bidet, though the bidet took up a strange amount of space. They had my room ready early, which I hadn’t expected and really appreciated after arriving by ferry at 11 am. Everything was clean, and they let me check out an hour late. I used the pool once; it was fine and not crowded, with just a little dirt in the water. The Colombo Bar was nice, the staff were intuitive, and I got a coffee as a welcome. The luggage room is completely unattended, so anyone can walk in at any time.

The only thing I really appreciated was being allowed to check in early after a long trip. Otherwise, this hotel was a major letdown. The room was tiny and basic, with dated facilities, dust everywhere, and stains on the curtains, lampshades, and even the bedding. Ants were everywhere, especially in the bathroom, with hundreds there in the evening. Staff offered bug spray and said this was “normal” for Porto Santo, but didn’t offer us another room. The TV signal was very poor. We didn’t use the pool, but the surrounding area didn’t look frequently cleaned. There was a huge cockroach floating on the floor of the outdoor shower, and dirt was visible at the bottom of the pool. Breakfast was better than we expected from the reviews, with a simple but sufficient choice of bread, ham, cheese, fruit, yoghurt, and cereal. The coffee machine seemed faulty and gave me hot chocolate instead of coffee two days in a row. This is definitely not a 3-star hotel. I’d avoid it until hygiene improves and guest complaints are taken more seriously.

We booked for that evening as a short rest before our flight home, believing this was a hotel on Madeira. There’s a building with the exact same name there, and when you click on it, Google says it’s a hotel. When we went to the building near the port, where we’d taken an Uber, we found a closed tour office instead. I’ve reported this to Google Maps and hope they remove it so others don’t go through the same stress. I think this listing is fraud, and that the tour office shouldn’t be called Hotel Praia Dourada on Google Maps. Within an hour of booking, I contacted the hotel to ask for a refund. They put me off, telling me to contact reservations the next day, after our booking. They said they couldn’t cancel or refund us, just as they’ve apparently done to people in earlier reviews. I feel conned and have filed a chargeback with my bank. How can they keep people’s money when someone books and cancels within less than an hour because of false advertising?