Funchal holiday apartment

Friends recommended this apartment to us, and we knew as soon as we opened the door we had made the right decision. We arrived earlier than expected, but were met at the gates within minutes by Claudio's representative on the island. The apartment is extremely well equipped, clean, comfortable and modern. There are ample spare towels and bedding if needed. Although it has a central location, the apartment was very quiet, and most days we had the pool to ourselves. The bacony is small but OK for two, and has a lovely view across to the sea. Ideal for an evening glass of wine!

The Dolce Vita shopping centre is about a 10 minute walk away, with a well stocked and reasonably priced supermarket, though it is a bit of a trek coming back up the hill! The marina is nearby and there are a number of restaurants near the waterfront. We went a couple of time to 'FX' and both times the food was lovely and not too expensive.

We booked 3 trips, a west island tour, an east island tour and a lavada walk (moderate difficulty) all of which were good value. We walked to the Botanical Gardens, which was quite a steep walk - so be prepared!

We would certainly recommend the apartment to family and friends and will be visiting again.

We were greeted and shown around the apartment as soon as we arrived outside Palms Palace. The apartment is very near to the Casino and a lovely park and is a short walk from the avenida do mar (promenade). There is a large, well equipped supermarket 10 mins away but the walk back is uphill so dont buy too many heavy things from here! There is a smaller supermarket nearby too which does not involve an uphill walk so heavy items can be bought from here. The tourist information is at the bottom of Rua De Jasmineiro and you can purchase tickets for all the island tours and boat trips here at similar rates to everywhere else. Though beautiful and unique, Funchal is still a large city so if you don't like city breaks, you need to choose an apartment outside of Funchal. Our only negative about this holiday is that we would not necessarily choose a self catering holiday in the future as we didn't find it as relaxing as being in a hotel where everything such as food and room cleaning is included in the price and thus requires little effort or thought. But maybe we just like to be lazy when we're on holiday!
The apartment itself was clean, modern and well equipped although there was no DVD player which we did miss on the few nights that we stayed in for a few beers - however we ended up becoming great fans of the Extreme Sports channel on the TV because there are some amazing things on there.
Things I would recommend to do -
1) West and East Island Tours on mini bus,
2) "Sea the Best" Catamaran trip to see the Dolphins and Whales (this was well worth the money and 1 of the highlights of our trip),
3) "O Tapassol" Restaurant in the old end of Funchal,
4) The Red sight seeing bus around Funchal - Get off at stop 15 or 16 and walk down to Praia Formosa and along the sea past the lidos back towards Funchal as this is a wonderful walk with many nice restaurants.

The apartment in Funchal was excellent and extremely well equipped. There was ample spare towels and bedding if required. Although there is a slight climb to the apartment we didn't find this a problem and it it only about a 5 min walk to the marina. We were met at the apartment with the keys and given a mobile number to ring in case we had any problems. We found the property was very convenient for walking into the old town and the harbour where there were plenty of nice restaurants and bars. We booked 3 trips which were all very good value, but would advise anyone not to book where time share is promoted. Although they seem to offer very good deals you can get them just as cheap if you look around. The cable car is well worth a trip on! we didn't do the toboggan as it seemed very expensive for the time you were on ijt. We would definately recommend the apartment to family and friends and would love to visit at Christmas time.