Hostel Santa Maria Funchal

I was booked to stay here over my Birthday. Unfortunately plans changed and I was having difficulty getting a refund with Opodo.||I contacted the Hostel directly and communicated with Christina who was very helpful, kind and understanding. Christina went that extra mile and on took on board my Health and as Opodo was very unhelpful, in the end she actually contacted themselves and informed them to cancel the booking.||The service she provided was beyond my expectation and I would definitely stay at some point considering the outcome as the most important thing when staying at a Hostel is friendly and helpful staff and my experience indicates that this must be great Hostel.||Thank you ever so much Christina, you really are a star.||Neeta (",)

Location - if you’re ok with noise from the street full of restaurants then the location couldn’t be better. Stuff - at first I thought that the receptionist was very nice but the next day after my arrival the code the front door was changed. I was told the emails have been sent but I didn’t get one. If it wasn’t for very kind waitress who let me in I’d have to call them because the reception is open 24/7. Rooms - I slept in mixed dormitory. Pros: you get key to the locker, there are no bugs. Cons: no lamp next to the bed - it’s worse than it sounds. Some people who arrived later (around 10 p.m. which is not very late) had to use their phone because they didn’t want to wake people by turning the big lamp on. There is no shelf next to bed. You have to pay for the towel! No air conditioning… I slept there in the middle of September so the temperature wasn’t deadly but still pretty high. There were 2 electric fans, we had the window and the door opened yet still it was unbearable. Bathroom - I can’t say anything good about it. It smelled, the showers smelled even worse. Soap was just next to the sinks, there were none in the showers. It’s seriously high time for it to be renovated. For 1 night it’s fine but for more I wouldn’t recommend it.

I liked: |Cleanliness on all the hostel areas|Hostel positioning |The Friendliness of the stuff ready all the time to provide guidance and help related the touristic opportunities Madeira offers. Many thanks to the lady from the reception desk (Cary Bamdez) through those help in advising me and making reservations at various tours made my stay memorable in Madeira.

Generally, I had pretty good experience staying there. It is located right in the old town of Funchal; there is a big market for fresh fruits and vegetables 5 minutes walking. The hostel has a spacious common area which is suitable for working as well. On the second floor there is kitchen where you can cook. The property has been kept clean and tidy. Inside is very calm too. Greetings to all the people working there who were really friendly. Cons: Wifi was not great; at times it barely ran a video call. The kitchen is not fully-equipped; lack of utensils. Due to its central location, at night is rather noisy. All in all, a good price/value ration taking into account the property market prices in Madeira.

The rooms and bathrooms are really clean and the location is fantastic with lots of restaurants and easily walkable to main attractions. The check-in and transfer from the airport was easy to organize. The receptionist was super friendly and helped us store our bags while we were on tours when checking in and out. The only problem at night is that the walls are very thin so it can be very noisy depending on the location of your room (and the floors are very creaky) - if you bring ear plugs you’ll be fine!

The position is in a lovely street with plenty of activities. This has a huge advantage but it is also a bit noisy. Anyway, it is more than acceptable. The toilettes and showers seem in number dimensioned correctly because, I've never had found occupied when I needed.The showers lacks a bit of privacy because there is just a curtain splitting with the rest of bathroom. The beds are comfortable and there is big locker for each one.

I recently stayed here for a week and it was a pleasant experience. Staff are really friendly and helpful. It’s also a great location, very close to the cable car where a lot of the buses run from too. ||Can be a bit noisy as it’s right next to a bunch of restaurants but the noise tends to die down by around 11pm. ||I was in a mixed dorm on the bottom bunk. The bed was comfortable enough but the top bunk was very low so you couldn’t sit on the bottom bunk without banging your head, you had to always be lying down.

The reception staff were wonderful. The location is fantastic. Cleaners are there everyday. It was great there was a kitchen, but it could be better stocked with items like mugs to drink from and good quality frying pans. I thought I was booking a separate bed within a room, not a bunk bed, based on the photo and description when booking, so that was misleading. The bed frames are cheap and super wobbly, so my sleep was disturbed by the other person quite a lot. I saw some of the other rooms, definitely worth booking the twin rooms, they looked really nice, whereas room Lilac with those bunk beds wasn't so nice.