Barcelo Funchal Old Town

We had a wonderful stay at this hotel. The quality and selection at breakfast as well as the overall experience was excellent. The perfect location to discover the delights of Funchal Old Town.

The organisation and the presentation of the Formal and Black tie events were very poor, not as advertised.

Our stay at the Barcelo had a bit of a wobbly start: we hopped in a taxi from the airport (well, two - there were 13 of us) but it couldn't drop us by the hotel because the road was closed for some kind of event. Not to worry, it was only a quick drag of the suitcases through some beautifully illuminated back streets, this being 28 December. The taxis cost us EUR45 per taxi (one for six, one for seven). Check-in took a little while but was straightforward enough. We'd been hoping to have a look around that part of Funchal but a 3+ hour delay meant we'd not arrived until mid-evening, so we dumped our bags in our rooms and headed for a drink or two at the seating area outside the front of the hotel. There was a musical duo playing (who were spectacularly good and tremendous fun), and we had a lovely couple of hours before calling it a night. Drink prices were very reasonable indeed, and way cheaper than at home. The hotel was in very good condition and super-clean. The communal areas were open and spacious, the rooms were a decent size and there were a couple of decent English-speaking news channels on the TV. The WiFi was very good too, and the beds were comfortable - none of the Billy Ray Cyrus syndrome ("achy-breaky back") my wife and I generally suffer from in hotel beds. The highlight of our room, though, was the shower. On morning one I declared to Mrs C that I'd found the perfect hotel shower, and I stand by it (she didn't disagree). It had a huge fixed rose and a separate head on a hose; the control was a simple on/off/hot/cold, which (unlike many) allowed smooth and easy adjustment between on, off, hot and cold. And to switch between the fixed and hand-held heads you simply prodded a couple of buttons on the wall. No rocket science, but big pressure and consistent flow and temperature. Brilliant. We headed to breakfast at 09:30 and it was pretty rammed, though we didn't have any real problems finding tables. (We discovered over the course of our stay that if you went a tad earlier it was much less mad). We christened it the "pac-man breakfast room": the tables were close together so if there was someone coming toward you, it was clear you couldn't pass so you'd turn left/right and go around via a different path, pac-man style. The breakfast range was excellent - cold meats, cheeses, hot stuff, someone cooking eggs/omelettes, bread, fruit, the list goes on. It was a big snug and they could have done with a little more space (so you ended up having to lean through the omelette queue to get some hot mushrooms from the pot, for example) but nobody minded so it was absolutely fine. The coffee machines were a bit of a lottery. There were plenty of them, but they went wrong a lot; they were industrial Nespresso machines and if you were even just a little heavy-handed inserting the pod (hint: don't push, just drop it in gently) it would jam and put the machine out of service. I did feel a little for the hotel, actually, because quite a lot of pods were wasted and the staff spent a lot of time prodding jammed pods out of the slots. The top-floor bar, lounger and pool area got a lot of use from us, as the weather was amazing: it was perfectly warm enough to sit in your swimmers in late December, not least because the terrace is a real sun-trap. There were plenty of places to sit, so we didn't feel too guilty going mob-handed, and the views were amazing. The location of the hotel was absolutely perfect. Come out of the front door, turn right, walk for a couple of minutes and you're by the road next to the harbour Turn left out of the front door and walk for a couple of minutes and you're heading for the middle of town. It was super-convenient - there are loads of bars and restaurants in the area, and a huge supermarket five minutes' walk away. Although we did have lunch at the hotel a couple of times (and evening drinks most evenings) we generally didn't have dinner there, because there was so much choice locally. The reception staff were super-helpful when it came to picking and booking local restaurants and taxis, which was good of them (particularly on the Sunday, when there wasn't much open). Pretty good, all in all. Any downsides? Just a couple. First, a seasonal one. We were there for New Year, and it was a bit of a surprise that from lunchtime on New Year's Eve the bar and catering simply closed, even for residents, so they could prepare for the NYE party - I wandered in in the hope of a beer and was told: sorry, we're closed. The tables and chairs were cleared from the terrace, but it was left empty and unused all afternoon. It wasn't an issue for us - there were plenty of other options - but given that all the other places on the street were buzzing with trade all afternoon and evening, they missed a wad of revenue. My recommendation is that next year they leave the tables out a bit longer and have one or two people serving drinks - it's all you'd need (I've done my time behind bars and keeping on top of 40 or so people on the terrace is no great shakes for a couple of skilled staff). Second, one that I see from Tripadvisor is a reasonably common issue: the drinks service can be tremendously slow. There's really no reason for this to be the case: they're not over-run with staff, but similarly it's not just a couple of bodies. A little bit of training and sorting out of procedures and they could halve the delivery time of drinks. Also, on one occasion the top-floor bar had no white wine: fixing this should have been a simple phone call asking for someone to bring some up, but instead required the barman to go and pilfer some from the other bar downstairs. We chose not to go to the NYE gala dinner (13 tickets would have been a bit pricey!) but instead did a supermarket run and took a picnic to the park across the road near the harbour. It was the perfect location - a short walk from the hotel (so we could skip back and dump picnic stuff before the fireworks started) albeit rather full of bodies. After a truly spectacular firework display we trotted back and a few of us figured we'd try to get into the top floor bar - which was fine, actually, as people had started to wander off so there was space for us to have a couple of beers and enjoy the truly awesome view. The cruise ships at the harbour and anchored offshore were said to number 13 (which I quite believe, including the Queen Anne which was tied up at the dock). In short, then. Not the cheapest, but a truly awesome location and an extremely pleasant hotel. Friendly people, good food and drink prices, brilliant breakfast excellent bedrooms, perfect showers, fab roof terrace/bar/pool with unbelievable views. If they sort out the drinks service, there will be literally nothing to find wrong with the Barcelo.