Au petit Madère

I’d originally given this place an 8 out of 10 on Booking, which would have brought its rating to a close. But the owner’s mocking, fact denying reply angered me, so I’m setting out what happened here. I wrote down facts, and not even all of them. You could hear every word from the other house. The children were loud enough to disturb us. Having a big property doesn’t help when the houses are close together, at least the ones nearest the parking lot. At night, cars drove right past our house and woke us. Our house was below the parking lot, so anyone who didn’t drive down to their own house would slam a car door over our heads at dawn. We didn’t have enough toilet paper or blankets. The owner asked in his reply why we hadn’t requested more. We did try, but the staff were “on vacation” the whole time, according to a note on the door. We saw the owner on the first day, then couldn’t find anyone despite trying. Maybe he didn’t know about this. The bed was small for two people. Beds are usually bigger in other accommodations. The TV only had French and German channels. The owner mocked us on Booking with “sorry, there’s no Hungarian.” My partner and I speak four languages altogether, including Hungarian. For a tourism focused place in Portugal, I expected at least English and the local Portuguese channel. We missed those. There were other issues too: the private terrace was tiny, with too little room to sunbathe; there was mold; the microwave was too high up to reach easily; access was difficult; and the area under the microwave hadn’t been cleaned in years. From the kitchen, you could also easily see into the bedroom of the house below while cooking. The photos and surroundings are wonderful, but the quality of life didn’t meet expectations. We spent three weeks traveling around Madeira and stayed in several places. This was the worst accommodation of the trip. Instead of taking offense, the owner should try to understand what guests need. A guest can give 2 or 3 points out of 10 without explaining why. If I take the time to write a review, the least I expect is a substantive response, not mockery when I ask for help. His Booking reply completely disappointed me and reinforced my negative view of French owners’ attitudes. Based on our experience, I strongly advise against booking here. If someone treats guests this way, I don’t think they can count on goodwill or help if a problem comes up. We’re experienced travelers and take vacations five or six times a year, for two to six weeks at a time, all over the world. We’ve stayed in countless places. Something similar happened only once before, in Thailand, where the owner was French. Coincidence...?