Vila Gale Santa Cruz

"We booked this hotel through Jet2 travelling from the UK. Let me first say this hotel is Portuguese owned and they clearly do not welcome or appreciate British customers. There is no information in the room in English and very little anywhere else. Jet2 should not be sending their British customers here. The reception staff were borderline hostile to us in the main, ignorant mostly. Never felt so unwelcome on holiday. We were bed and breakfast so ate in the resort largely. Breakfast was good, lots of choice. The hotel was very clean throughout. I have never stayed at a 4 star hotel before that has no tea and coffee making facilities in the room. Very poor in my opinion. You can hire a kettle from reception? Whether you can also buy tea and coffee making items I don’t know as we didn’t hire a kettle. Seems ridiculous for what you pay that there is nothing to make a drink with. I would never ever return to this or any other hotel in this chain. You are happy to take our money, don’t be so rude and hostile to paying guests."

"To be fair, I think this hotel would be ranked higher by a different kind of guest. This is really a large all-inclusive charter vacation type of hotel. The English-language website gives false information about the hotel. The website notes that there are two restaurants - even provides menus for the fictional restaurants. In truth, there is one and the only dinner is an all-inclusive buffet. The front desk never mentioned this. There are strange rules - you have to book time to use the indoor pool and get towels from the reception right before your booking - terrible towels too. When you pick up your towels, they don’t tell you need buy swimming hats so you have to go back up from the pool to do so. On top of everything, we checked out of the hotel before breakfast because we had an early cab, went down for a cup of coffee at the breakfast bar. The lobby was dark and no one but the staff member and us around. We then ran up (15 minutes later) and went to our cab and the same reception staff member chased us down the steps yelling that we hadn’t checked out. Seriously. On the plus side, the hotel is pretty and the town cute."

"We stayed at Vila Gale during Christmas week,the first time we had been away from the UK at this time of year.The service and atmosphere at this hotel was excellent.We had the all inclusive package and the selection and quality of the food was great,plenty of choice.The bar and drinks available were also very good and a special mention for Nidia,her smile and always cheerful personality and exceptional service helped to make every evening a very pleasant experience.We also took advantage of the free shuttle service into Funchal,a must visit destination.The location of the hotel is perfect,just a short walk from the lovely little town of Santa Cruz which has to be one of the the prettiest places to see at Christmas,excellent decorations adding to the whole atmosphere of our holiday.Would certainly visit again."