Pestana Grand Ocean Resort Hotel

Good breakfast and dinner. Rooms were better than we expected with photos. Free parking. Very nice view from side sea type of rooms - straight to sunset side, so it doesn't make sense to pay extra for upgrade.

"Sea salt pool" was advertised but we were not able to find such. Drinks and even water is not included into the price for a dinner. As our departure was very early in the morning - we asked for a lunchbox instead of a breakfast. It was not so great to be honest. It is not to complain - but to meet the expectations it is good to know that this hotel is very popular by older audience.

Nice, large hotel with many facilities and very helpful staff. They helped us with car rental (and provided detailed information about the possibilities and answered all my questions) and canyoning. The surrounding is very nice, both within and outside of the hotel. The hotel is well located, nearby we found some nice places to eat out or even to do some shopping. We enjoyed the spa. Small, but but turkish bath (steam bath) is nice just like the jacuzzi. And here one can rest in pretty much silence. Loved it.

Although the food (both the breakfast and the dinner) is good and there are many many options, we found it very boring after 3-4 days. The day by day variation is low and we really missed some sauces, spreads etc. In other similar (even lower rated) hotels we found more variety from day to day. Also, in a 5 star hotel I would expect a proper table tennis set if there's a table tennis table. But here we found only low quality bats and even lower uality balls. One of the bath towels was torn, which again should not happen in a 5 star hotel.

The staff were wonderful and went out of their way to make sure our experience was well-cared for. I'm currently 5 months pregnant and they made sure I had an extra pillow in the bedroom and facilitated the spa treatment for me. One particular member, Braulo, was especially attentive and friendly, always taking care of our needs, remembering our orders and got me a fresh decaf coffee so I didn't have to use the machine! (Little things ha!) The facilities were great; the pool was clean and the pool staff were exceptionally attentive with care around the pool and providing parasols and location of them for optimum shade. There was a room to play pool, T.V, entertainment in the evening, the gardens were lovely to walk round and easy, secure access down onto the promenade was great! The room was clean and tidied every day, the shower worked very well, and the balcony was nice to sit out on. The food was excellent! There was an extensive range of options for breakfast and dinner (we were half board), and 3 other restaurants to book in as part of the cost. Beware of the divine dessert, ha! Make sure to ask for bacon at breakfast, as this wasn't clear, and we missed out for a few days.

I will have to be nitpicky to highlight areas that we "didn't like," as it was mostly great! The rooms were lovely however, ours could have had more of a thorough polish/dust before we checked in. For me, I would have preferred to have the same filtered decaf coffee as normal filtered coffee, rather than using the machine. There was one occasion were we queried if our no-alcohol shandy was in fact that, as it tasted different, and the restaurant manager kind of fobbed us off. He could have been more attentive and offered more lemonade, etc.

It is nice 4* hotel. Staff tends to keep everything clean and well working. Everything is as advertised. Location is great. Range of services is just about right. Wednesday dinners with grill are delight! Other meals are just fine as well.

The hotel is dated. Service is dated as well. But! It is actually good news that they managed to keep it is as such a clean and good shape for quite a long time. You only have to count with that when booking. So do not expect state of the art hotel. Expect a very well maintained and managed old style hotel (including food choice etc.)

Sea view from room balcony and overlooking swimming pool and gardens was beautiful. Great place to sit and read a book or have a drink and relax. I liked that the hotel had three different restuarants to eat in if you booked ahead instead of the buffet each night. The staff were all friendly and helpful.

The food in the buffet could have been laid out much better with things like bread/rolls and butter being near each other. Or fruit being all in one place. Also clearer labels on the food would help those on special diets or with allergies find things they could eat quicker. Unable to get decaffinated coffee at breakfast or with evening meal ?why The self service buffet became a bit caotic when busy with no obvious direction of flow and a bit of a free for all. Accidents with hot food were narrowly missed on occasions. The food choice when you found it was good and plentiful.

Breakfast was OK for this kind of big hotel, but not overwhelming !

The coffee quality unfortunately was the worst ever! Only at the pool bar you could get a good coffee … and pay for it of course! Food quality at dinners was poor, the same for Sylvester dinner, although good wine was served! Location of the hotel is far out from Funchal, nothing nice to discover in direct walking distance! In pool and spa areas, many places of water infiltration, damaged walls and mold. The sauna was cold, as well as the jacuzzi!

Our stay was excelent. We really enjoyed the breakfast and dinner buffet which were varying sufficiently from day to day to keep every meal interesting. The views from the room and the gardens were amazing too.

Given how high of a bar they set for so many things, it was rather disapointing to see that some optional elements have not been paid attention to in a while. - there were chess 'tables', but only one usable chess set (all the others had missing pieces). it's disapointing to see that these are expected to last forever and are never replaced. - the pool sticks were a bit bent (probably due to age), and would benefit from a renewal too - the ping pong bats were the lowest quality I've ever seen. A decent pair of outdoor bats will last way longer. And having more balls (or bats) available will probably get a bit more attention to this table. These are small details that can easily be overlooked. Paying attention to the quality of these small things can elevate the experience even more.

The hotel itself is good but it is rather made for mass tourism. Staff was always super friendly and helpful. There are several dining options, and we tried a few. Be careful, there are some restaurants bookable which are at other locations, its not shown in the computer but on a small notice board beside it. The main restaurant in the Atrium serves Breakfast (7/10) good selection but no variety, qualitiy of food is good. The omlette guy is making one at a time so you have to wait. Coffee is terrible for us not drinkabe, only 2 coffee machines which slightly better taste but often longer waiting times. Dinner Buffet (7/10) overall a good salad bar, main courses provides a good selection of meats, fish and vegetables – the quality varies from bad to good, desserts are plenty and good quality Cabo Girao (7/10) We had dinner once – most of the courses were taken from the main buffet, so nothing special about it. The main course was ok but you have no choice and you must take the given course. Trattoria La Fontana (2/10) What a disappointment – the tomato soup wasn’t a tomato soup, the spaghetti carbonara was rather a cream soup with overcooked noodles. After we had that experienced we cancelled our reservation for the other restaurants and never visited dinner buffet again. Au Tagine – not visited As a lessons learned – you don’t need dinner included in your hotel rate – there are plenty of (better) dining options around in the area and Funchal. From my point of view also cheaper or only slightly more expensive.

The gym was a bit disappointing – I missed a cross-trainer, which would be a great addition to the fitout.

The pools were lovely, the sauna and steam room great! The breakfast was good. The hotel is like a mini-oasis!! It is within walking distance of the black sand / pebble beach. It is close to car / scooter rental - which is very convenient. Bus stop is nearby. Supermarket nearby. Really great location! And a lovely hotel!

Dinner was not great. I do not recommend it. There are several dinner locations within walking distance, no need to do dinner at the hotel.

Buffet breakfast was good. We walked into Funchal but may be too far for non walkers. Buses available just outside hotel.

Didn’t like the rooms at the side of the hotel. Didn’t get the sun until late afternoon. The buffet dinner was like a school canteen and we didn’t like the atmosphere in there.