Riu Madeira

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

3353 reviews

• 

  Good hotel

  Very good location and good quality hotel. The free bus into Funchal every day was a bonus. The food in the main (buffet) restaurant was really good. We were allowed one dining experience in the "Kulinarium Restaurant" during our stay - it was very well appointed but the food was not up to standard - fancy plates did not make for fancy food! The food was better in the main restaurant. The nightly entertainment was quite good.

  Feb 20, 2025
• 

  Fourth stay at this beautiful Hotel

  We have tried a few other high standard hotels in Madeira, but always come back to the Riu! Its’ location is perfect being just 20 mins transfer from the airport and on a beautiful promenade, with lovely views but also within 20 minutes of the city centre. The hotel provides a free daily shuttle bus three times a day in each direction, which must be booked with reception. If you want to go in or return outside the set shuttle times, the local bus costs €2.60 each and the bus stop is directly outside the hotel. There is no sandy beach, but there is a nice pebble beach just 5 mins walk away, where there is also a really good cafe (they do an amazing iced coffee here!). There is also another small cafe on the promenade in the opposite direction from the hotel, but we found this more pricey and not as good as the one at the beach. Back in the hotel itself, it really is difficult to think of anything negative to say. We always opt for a side sea view room as there are lovely views of the ravine that runs alongside the hotel, with the sea crashing on the rocks at the bottom of the ravine. The rooms are comfortable and kept spotlessly clean, although our cleaner was slightly over zealous and woke us up on a couple of occasions, so make sure you put your red ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door! 😖🤣 The food is amazing for all three meals. Just so much choice and I would challenge anyway to not find something to their liking, however fussy you may be!!! The snack bar has some basic food (salads, chicken, burgers etc) available all day. There’s also a small a la carte restaurant that you can book for, once during your weeks stay. We ate on the outside terrace for nearly every meal which was lovely. Patio heaters are on during the evening and the service is always good, especially when Rui or Antonio are working a shift. They remember what your usual choices of drinks etc are and bring them without you even asking! Thank you. Outside is the main draw for us, as the pools and terraces are great …. There is never a shortage of sun loungers and most have either a parasol or sliding sunshade. The best thing is that the pool closest to the snack bar is slightly heated during the winter months which is amazing!!! There is also another small indoor heated pool but we never used that, so I can’t comment. We are already planning our next trip!

  Feb 20, 2025
• 

  Beautiful location, excellent service

  Hotel is beautifully located just on the ocean side, not far from Funchal and provides shuttle service for the capital every day. The room is spacious and has small fridge and kettle. If you need, you can pick up a bottle of water from the 24 hrs bar. Bed and bedding good as well as the house keeping service. All various drinks and food are very good.You can enjoy live entertainment show every evening. All staff is very polity and careful.

  Feb 18, 2025
• 

  Another fantastic stay

  All as excellent as ever. Fantastic service, everywhere is beautifully clean & delicious food. The perfect place for a relaxing break. Thank you everyone who works so hard to create all this.

  Feb 17, 2025
• 

  Lovely Hotel

  This is a lovely hotel in a perfect spot, most, if not all rooms have sea views and our room was great, we had everything we needed, a fantastic bathroom with a spacious shower, our room was a good size and plenty of storage space for clothes, it was nice to have more than enough hangers for a change (and they were the proper ones, not those silly clip on ones that some hotels use). There was also a large safe, included in the price of the room. We had a large balcony and a good sea view. The only negatives were that we had twin beds and would have preferred a double and we had to ask for blankets as they only provided thin sheets and it can get chilly at night in February. There was a good-sized fridge and a Kettle to make Tea and Coffee. The lobby area is spectacular and all of the staff were very helpful and friendly. There is a free shuttle bus to Funchal which was very appreciated, although they could have more pick-up times if guests just wanted a shorter trip into town. The main restaurant had plenty of food and a reasonable variety to choose from, although it didn't change very much and maybe they could introduce theme nights with cuisine from other countries, (Chinese or Indian for example) and another negative is that there is very little Gluten free food offered, just some bread and croissants at breakfast, but nothing else for lunch or dinner. We were also concerned that one of the chefs had a cold and was coughing a lot while preparing food, this is not good for the health of hotel guests. There is an a la carte restaurant that you can book once during your stay, but that is once too often as the food was awful, it was bland, tasteless and not even as good as the buffet restaurant. Pepe's near the pool actually had the best food and their chicken and pork were by far the tastiest food we had during our stay. It is a lovely place to sit and have a coffee and overlook the pool or sea, you can sit inside or outside, however, people do smoke outside which put us off sitting outside. This was also true of the main restaurant and maybe the hotel could consider a separate smoking area, or better still make all eating areas non-smoking. One of the biggest disappointments was the lack of a dress code at dinner. We were looking forward to staying at a classy hotel, but they allowed guests to eat wearing jeans and even shorts and t-shirts which is a shame. The evening entertainment was pretty bad, most nights it consisted of small bands, mainly trios that were very amateur with no stage presence, in fact on a trip into Funchal we saw buskers who were much more musically talented. Sadly some of the bands were so awful we left after a couple of songs. This review may seem negative, but overall we loved our stay and would return, these comments are so that hopefully the hotel management will see these as suggestions that will improve the experience of their guests.

  Feb 17, 2025