Despite some of the adverse reviews about the sevice, all the staff here were extremely helpful and polite. We stayed for one week which just flew by. We hired a car from the airport, (an absolute must) for around £130 which gave us the freedom to come and go as we pleased. We took our own sat. nav. which worked ok, but with the constant road upgrades, didn't always work out right. The drive to the hotel was a scary journey as the sat. nav. took us up some dead ends and some really tight steep bends. My advice would be stay on the main roads and just keep going up! After a few times we got the hang of it. The hotel runs a free mini-bus service to Funchal and back, but if you miss it or want to stay longer, although there are plenty of taxis, I think they are quite expensive.
The room we had was large with a fridge, super-king size bed, (a bit hard for us), on the third floor overlooking Camara Do Lobos harbour in the distance. The swimming pool is just like the photo, but not very warm, but the sauna/turkish bath was out of service.
The games room has a pool table next to Henrys Bar which was free with some card tables and games.
The resteraunt was nice with a buffet style breakfast serving a variety of hot and cold dishes, english and continental. We only had one evening meal here, which was good, but worked out quite expensive. There are a few supermarkets close by to stock up with cheap wine and food to take back to your room. The hotel staff are ok with this.
Lots of good restaraunts in Funchal, with a cheap multi storey car park near the coach station and taxi rank (All day parking less than 6 Euros). Some cheap and good restaraunts under the cable car run.

It was about my fourth time in this hotel and certainly not the last... Excelent arquitecture with a superb indoor pool. The rooms are facing a beautiful variety of amazing trees... Never had dinner but found the staff quite friendly. Take a nice book and your girl and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere of true Madeira Quinta...

The Hotel is beautiful, the facilities are great but the service could be improved a lot. The breakfast was the worse experience with limited selection (especially with fruits which is a severe problem given that its in Madeira).
I reccomend this hotel if you want to stay out of the Centre and want to feel in the countrside. A good place to explore the island but only if you are willing to organise stuff on your own (don't expect the hotel staff to do it for you).
Don't loose the opportunity to have dinner in the traditional "espetadas" restaurant (Santo António) on the road from the hotel to Funchal.
In short: a beautiful hotel with a lot of potential, great if you just need a confortable spot to explore the island.

We arrived at the hotel shocked at its location. We had been unable to get directions via the usual means, ie no sat nav directions, google earth etc. It is 9Kms outside Camerra De Lobos. This is a definite hotel that's a get away from it all, which would be lovely if the service was not so appalling. The sad thing was there is so much to offer at the hotel but the service spoils all the potential benefits. It was common to wait an hour and a half to two hours for your starter to arrive in an evening, one evening, having waited two hours for a bowl of soup and a further 30 minutes for our main course, we were then told there was only enough spaghetti for one portion!!!! How can you run out of Spaghetti!!. There were 18 tables in the restaurant with diners on, no more than 30 people to serve. When we raised it with the staff they were apologetic but unable to produce a manager. I will be writing to the Madeira Tourist Board to enquire how the Hotal managed to get 5 stars.