IS IT WORTH TO TRAVEL TO MADEIRA IN WINTER?
Do you want to escape the winter blues? Are you looking for a place where you can get some sun in winter? Are you thinking about visiting Madeira in winter?
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You read a lot of reviews for places like Madeira, Tenerife and other similar islands. All saying that winters are mild, temperatures are in their 20 to 22 degrees during the day and the possibility of rain is very low.
So, you are considering a trip to Madeira in winter, but are still unsure if it is worth and wonder what to do and what to visit in the island.
On this post I will highlight our experience in Madeira in winter. What we did and visited in detail, which hopefully will help you decide if you want to book in winter or wait for a more certain time of the year to visit.
Where is Madeira? Madeira is part of an archipelago of islands that belong to Portugal. It is located on the North Atlantic Ocean, North of the Canary Islands and to the west of Morocco. Below is a map showing the location of Madeira and the places we went to on day 1 of our visit to Madeira:
We wanted to go somewhere not so cold and rainy in January. Somewhere not so far away or very expensive. Just a few days to unwind and experience something new.
After reading a lot about Madeira Island, I decided I wanted to visit it. So, when a very attractive deal for flights and accommodation popped in my inbox, I was very excited and booked it straight away. It was for a 5 day stay in a very well located, 4-star hotel and including flights to Funchal, Madeira.
That was with the budget airline that I never used before. Because the flights were at a sensible time and from an airport convenient to us, I decided to go ahead and book for January 2024.
The booking was made in October 2023. By the end of November, I received an e-mail from them saying that our flight had been cancelled.
I asked for other options of flights on the same day, but there weren’t any. They had flights on other days, but because the dates would be changed the hotel price would increase.
What seemed to have been a very attractive deal initially, was not looking that good anymore. I was left with no option other than cancel the whole trip.
Our plans ended up abruptly and we were left feeling frustrated and unhappy. So, to rescue our sanity, I looked for other deals to Madeira and found a better one with British Airways. I found one for the same 5 days, in a better hotel (5 stars), in a better location, for the same price as the first deal with the other company. Uff! Our trip had been saved!
We were travelling independently as we are confident travellers and speak the language. However, if you prefer to be part of a tour and to have everything organised for you, I advise you to book a complete tour with Tourradar.
Tourradar has different kinds of tours that will fit your time and budget. If you book it via my links you can get a discount by using this code: RoseG50.
The flight was early in the morning from Heathrow Airport. As we live about two hours away from the airport, when we have early flights, we leave on the previous night. We stay in an hotel close to the airport where we can leave our car in their car park for the duration of our trip.
This time we stayed at Thistle Hotel (not good) and took a taxi next morning to the airport and the same on the return.
We have stayed in many other budget hotels near the airport before and all of them were bad and in need of a full refurbishment. The best one so far was the Ibis one.
They usually offer a package of one night accommodation + dinner + parking for the duration of the trip for a fixed price. However, the budget hotels are all bad and dinner is from a very restricted self-service buffet.
As it is only for one night and makes our life easier when flights are very early, we still find it a good option for us. From the Thistle hotel’s terrace we could see the airport terminal very close.
Our flight to Funchal was delayed for about an hour. It is about 4 hours flight to get to Madeira. We were due to arrive at about 12:00 o’clock Madeira time as per the original time of arrival, but now 1 pm.
The pilot announced that we were just arriving, and we should prepare for landing. Everybody locked their seat belts in and put their seats in place for the imminent landing. I was on a window seat, and I could see the island very close from the window.
However, the plane started to go around in circles and didn’t land. We were in the air flying in circles for about an hour. We had an announcement from the pilot saying that we were not going to land in Madeira due to very strong winds at the time.
He had waited to see if the wind was going to pass, but as it was not passing, we would have to land on another island nearby: Porto Santo.
Everybody became quite agitated. What? Are we landing in Porto Santo? It takes about two and a half hours to get to Madeira from Porto Santo by boat. Is there a boat available at that time? How are we supposed to get to Madeira if there are no boats?
Soon we landed in Porto Santo and another announcement came through. We would wait there until the wind passed and when it was safe to land in Madeira, we would take off again and land there.
We spent another hour there until we were able to fly again. With the delay in London, the time flying in circles and the time waiting in Porto Santo, we ended up arriving in Madeira just after 3 pm.
Madeira airport (officially called Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport) is one of the most dangerous airports in the world. Pilots need to go through additional training to land there.
According to Wikipedia you read the following:
“Madeira Airport is a geographically unusual airport, as it is perched on a foreland jutting out to sea. At the end of runway 05, there lie hills and cliffs which make a direct ILS approach and landing unavailable. Instead, aircrafts have to do a visual approach which involves flying around the airport, then circling around in a ~180° turn before lining up on a very short final approach.
The airport’s runway – 05/23 – is a tabletop runway, which means there are steep drop-offs at either end of the runway – at the beginning of Runway 05, the runway drops off just before a motorway that snakes around the runway end, and at the beginning of Runway 23, which drops off a cliff. The runway is also unique in the fact that at the beginning of Runway 23, the runway is placed on a platform supported by pillars, similar to a beam bridge”.
I’ve heard about the dangers of the airport before, but I didn’t get into detail or heard anyone talk about it or seen anyone write about it.
While we were waiting in Porto Santo, I started reading about it and read unbelievable stories. I read that a flight from another airline landed in Porto Santo because was unable to land in Madeira. Everybody needed to disembark there as the flight was going to return to the UK.
I’m not sure if it happens with all the other airline flights. Maybe the weather and wind were so bad that there was no possibility to land in Madeira that day at all. Passengers had two options, disembark or return to the UK. Nice, isn’t it? At this point I was glad I cancelled the other reservation and booked with British Airways.
I was also having a chat with the flight attendant, and he was telling me that this was a normal occurrence in Madeira. This was common in January because of the winds. That week it had happened three times already.
Anyway, we landed in Madeira Airport later and it was a nice day, although it looked like the weather was going to change soon. We took a taxi to take us to our hotel. We had booked it in advance for much earlier than that. However, they know about the delays as it is normal, so our driver was still there waiting for us.
Our hotel was the “Pestana Casino Park” from the Pestana Group. This Group has a monopoly of hotels in Madeira, 14 of them just in Funchal.
It is a beautiful hotel and to our surprise, we just found out when we arrived, that this hotel was designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Niemeyer was the famous Brazilian architect that designed Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. I love his designs that are all modernist architecture. We were blown away to see and stay in such an important piece of architecture such as this hotel.
We checked in and went to the room allocated to us, but we didn’t like it. It was an old room in desperate need of a refurbishment and there was a smell of urine on the carpet.
We went straight downstairs to complain and asked to change rooms. We were told that all rooms in the category we paid for were the same and were all going through refurbishment at the moment. If we wanted, we could be upgraded to a refurbished room with a balcony facing the sea for an extra price, of course.
The difference was not much, about £30 pounds per day, so we went to see the room first and after being happy with it agreed to change and pay extra. However, we were a bit disappointed that such a nice, 5 stars hotel was offering guests that sub-standard type of room.
The new room was much nicer, and the views from the balcony were lovely. It was on the side, but you could see the hotel gardens, the Old Town, and the sea. The hotel was close to the cruise terminals as well and we had views of the beautiful ships that were coming and going from Funchal.
After changing rooms and settling in we went out to explore the hotel and the area around it.
The plan was to arrive and after check-in to go for a walk in the Old Town to get familiarised with the place, passing through Santa Catarina Park and see CR7 Museum on the way. But because of the delays it was already late, so we opted to stay around the hotel.
The hotel communal area is superb. There are 3 swimming pools, one in the garden, one on the rooftop and one inside. An enormous restaurant and bar and a beautiful garden facing the sea. There is a casino within the premises as well, but in a different building. We sat at the seats outside the bar with some drinks watching the nice view from there and relaxing a little bit.
VISITING MADEIRA
The hotel was just close to Santa Catarina Park, a beautiful park with different types of trees, flower beds and a lake full of ducks and swans. After finishing our drinks, we crossed the park on our way to the Old Town.
We were on our way to “Combatentes” restaurant for an early dinner. We didn’t have a reservation, but because we arrived early, we managed to get a table. Later the restaurant started filling up and by the time we left it was completely full.
Dinner was excellent, the food at Combatentes is traditional Madeiran cooking, offering regional and national dishes all prepared with local, fresh ingredients.
I chose the traditional sword fish and my husband the mushroom risotto. We chose a very nice Portuguese white wine to accompany the dinner and finished off with a delicious dessert.
We really enjoyed our dinner at Combatentes, the staff were very attentive and friendly and the food excellent and good value for money.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel and stopped at the bar again as they were having live music. We sat there to watch people dancing and enjoy the music with another drink to close the night.
After our turbulent trip and day, we were hoping that next day we were going to have a better day visiting the Old Town and go up to Monte in the cable car to visit some gardens and other places. I will tell you all about it in my next post, so bear with me.
Don’t forget to check the tours available at Tourradar if you prefer to have your trip and tours all organised for you.
HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TRIP
Below you will find a list of what to visit, where to stay and where to eat in Madeira. I classified each place as follows:
BOLD – Visited, tried and recommended
NOT BOLD – Not visited or tried, but planning to visit or try and heard very good reviews
RED – Visited and tried but do not recommend, avoid or be cautious
*** – Excellent
** – Good
* – OK
£££ – Expensive
££ – Fair and affordable
£ – Cheap
PLEASE NOTE: Every hotel, restaurants and attractions I mention on my blogs are not sponsored reviews and we always paid the full price when visiting. We give our own opinion of the place and detail our experience, good or bad.
WHAT TO SEE IN MADEIRA
ATTRACTIONS – Day 1
1 – The Old Town – ***
2 – Santa Catarina Park – ***
3 – CR7 Museum
WHERE TO STAY
ACCOMMODATION
1 – Pestana Casino Park Hotel & Casino – 5* – £££
2 – Savoy Palace -5* – £££
3 – Arts In Hotel Conde Carvalhal – 4* – ££
4 – Turim Santa Maria Hotel – 4* – ££
5 – The Views Baia – 4* – ££
6 – The Cliff Bay – PortoBay – 5* – £££
If you prefer to look for your own accommodation search and book via the below widget:
I use affiliate links such as the links above for Booking.com, Get your Guide, Viator and others. It means that if you use any of my links to make a booking, I will get a small commission from the partners I’m affiliated with without any additional cost to you. Please, use the links provided when making a booking, this is a way of supporting blogs like this so we can continue writing informative and interesting posts. I’m very thankful for that.
WHERE TO EAT
RESTAURANTS
1 – Restaurante Combatentes – *** – ££
2 – Restaurante Informal – ££
3 – Taberna Ruel – ££
4 – Il Vivaldi – £££
5 – O Dragoeiro – ££
6 – Armazém do Sal – £££
If you tried any of my recommendations above, please send me a message and tell me about your experience good or bad, so I can update the list accordingly. Thanks!
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