Pestana Porto Santo Beach Resort & Spa

Great hotel resort with All Inclusive meals and drinks. Excellent service and good quality amenities. Evening entertainment mainly suitable for families, with young children which is understandable.

Excelente escolha, boa localização

Ongeziene keuze bij ontbijt!!! Sommige gasten ruimden zelf hun plastieken bekertjes en bakjes niet op, door de wind gingen die dan op de grond en dat leek dan soms niet zo proper. Hotelpersoneel probeert wel snel op te ruimen.

I spent lovely two weeks at Pestana resort. It was my second visit there and I wasn’t disappointed. I loved it! I had a great and relaxing holiday again. I travelled with TUI. The reps Daria and Lauren were very friendly, kind and helpful, always ready to answer any questions. Hotel and beach are beautiful! Pools kept clean, all staff very helpful and friendly. I used all 4 a la carte restaurants and my favourite one was Koi and Mediterranean. Fully recommend them! Animation team staff were very good, all of them were lovely. Special shout out to Abdel who was always professional and passionate about everything from entertainment shows to fitness classes! I attended his Pilates, Aqua Aerobics and yoga classes and I thoroughly enjoyed them! He is giving 100% . Also his attitude to children is brilliant. I will definitely come back to Porto Santo and Pestana hotel in the future.

This is not 5* or even 4* in my opinion. How Tui rate this hotel 4* Plus is beyond me. The hotel itself, grounds and the beach are great. Our room was quite large, beds ok but the bedding was poor. They give you a fridge but do not fill it with anything and state they do not supply any courtesy water in the fridge, you have to get that yourself from reception, so what's the point in putting a fridge in there? The hotel is in sections and they are rustic which makes any sounds outside in the corridors etc magnify and you can hear everything at all hours. In the night you can hear others in the next door rooms going to the toilet. Someone got stuck in a lift one night and the whole unit was woken up with this poor woman crying and banging to get out which after 3/4 of an hour later we manage to do. Staff did come but then disappeared and didn't see them again by the time she was out. Then no signs were put up to say the lift could be faulty. Now for the spoiler.... The buffet and restaurant or canteen as we called it is awful. You queue to get in and the choice of food is the same in a company canteen. You have to grab a waiter to get a drink and if you want a refill your better off getting it yourself and that's if they haven't run out. Not enough staff, who are good and the canteen is definitely not big enough. We actually went outside of the resort to a lovely restaurant down the road which was fantastic as we'd had enough of the canteen. I will say the restaurants which you get booked into on arrival are very good though. There is only one bar at night and again you queue for ages and your better off getting 3 drinks at a time so you don't have to re-queue. Entertainment is also not good, its the entertainment staff lip syncing to songs most nights with Karaoke also. The poolside bar and food aisle is ok but we did get served a pork burger which was basically raw so be careful of that and all drinks are in paper cups. I could go on more but I won't. It was busy when we went but they should cater for that and clearly do not. Definitely will not be going back. If it was rated at 3* plus I understand it but I'm sorry this isn't up to scratch.

From the moment we arrived we felt so well looked after. Greeted by the staff like a celebrity with juice and the hotels mascot! We arrived early evening with a very tired toddler and they told us we could go straight for dinner and then we could check in later on which was so thoughtful. The hotel is spotless! Beautiful spacious rooms and they cater for children so well. Food was great - lots of variety from vegan to the more adventurous eaters. Drinks were brilliant - lovely beer, cocktails and spirits. Proper all inclusive package here! Staff were incredibly friendly and attentive. Special shout out to the head kids entertainment guy (sorry can’t recall name) he went up to our three year old, crouched down and asked about her new teddy and we were honestly so blown away as he could’ve just kept walking by. You can tell he loves children and is really passionate about his job. Also weds 5th June we checked out and the guy that took over the beach bar that day was excellent! He really transformed the atmosphere at the beach bar. He was awesome and we shared an interest in The Weekend musician! It was my daughters first holiday abroad and honestly, we can’t fault it! The location is perfect, short transfer, clean, safe and the kids pool, club and pirate ship with the bouncy castle is amazing! Please ignore all bad reviews and book this!!!! We will always look out for Pestana hotels - thank you thank you thank you!!!

Just got back from a week here with TUI. Fair to say it was a mixed bag with some good but also plenty of bad. Bear in mind that this is from the perspective of a 'mature' couple; if you are a family with young children you may have a different experience. Also this is a review of the hotel and not Porto Santo which is glorious and well worth a visit if you want somewhere small and unspoilt. The good points: 1. The hotel location and layout is superb. Transfer from the airport was only 10-15 minutes; only get a taxi if you don't like sitting on a coach with other people. It's right on a spectacular sandy beach offering long, shoes-off walks in both directions. The pools are large and clean. We never had any problems getting a sunbed where we wanted. 2. We had a pool view room which was large, clean and had everything we needed. The balcony was a good size with a nice view of the pool. Almost uniquely the bed and pillows comfortable for both us (we have very different preferences for firmness of mattresses!). It was good and unusual to have a safe and air conditioning at no extra charge. 3. The drinks in the all inclusive package were all very good with branded spirits (plus an excellent local "brandy") and decent beer and wine. The cocktails were all made to order and a lot of care was taken in making them. 4. The wooden platform on the way to the beach was a great place to have a late afternoon drink although the beach bar closed at 17:00 so you had to carry it from the pool bar (not really a problem). 5. The Med speciality restaurant was very good from start to finish. 6. Staff were generally helpful and friendly (although sometimes stressed and hassled - see below). Now the bad: 1. The buffet restaurant just can't cope with the number of guests. There were regular long queues to get in although we rarely had a serious issue. There is simply not enough space so the tables are tightly packed. This leads to pressure on the staff to clear tables for queuing guests which in turn means they don't keep up with serving drinks. 2. The lack of space means that the food tables and live cooking areas are far too small and there are queues for popular items and the 'live' cooking. This probably also contributes to the limited choices and dishes regularly running out and not being replenished quickly. 3. We have been to quite a few all inclusives and the approach to 'live' cooking is a good barometer of the food quality. The best cook the food to order and serve it directly to your plate; this is not one of those. You might as well have gone into the kitchen and watched them fill the chafing dishes. 4. Beware of the allergen labelling. My wife has an unpleasant and immediate reaction to crustaceans (and maybe molluscs). On one night there was a pork stew which had no allergen warning even though there were very obviously clams in it. In the Luigi speciality restaurant a 4 seasons pizza with prawns had no crustacean allergen label although it did ha

A largely disappointing experience.... This hotel has the potential to be a quality family hotel. However, there are many things that need fixing. 1. The buffet, this place is dire and resembles a poorly run school canteen, the food quality, especially at breakfast is just not worth getting out of bed for. Add ontop of this the serving staff clearing plates at the side of the room crashing and smashing cutlery down right next to where you are sitting the whole vibe is far from pleasant. We went for lunch in the buffet once and that was enough for us, serving staff very rarely came to the table to offer drinks or water which meant you had normally finished your meal by the time you were offered a drink. 2. The dress codes are confusing the hotel reception posters only explain smart casual which requires men to wear long trousers (this turned out to be any type of long trousers). However, when attending the restaurants that require a smart casual dress code it became very clear that the Portuguese guests didn't need to follow the dress code. One of the hotels restaurants has the dress code smart chick (assuming they meant chic) which is not explained anywhere, as it turns out this is actually their smart casual dress code in disguise. i was turned away from the restaurant wearing a pair of smart leather shoes, smart straight cut chino shorts and a smart shirt as i didn't have long trousers on, meanwhile one guest was in the restaurant was wearing a pair of trainers, old jeans and a t shirt. the whole dress code system really needs rethinking . 3. The showers, our shower worked most of the time, however, come 18:00 the transfer button from the tap to the shower seemed to just give up on itself, meaning for the whole of our stay a pre dinner shower cosisted of one of us holding the transfer button whilst the other showered, or on more tricky occassions holding the button down with one hand whilst holding the shower head in the other, a very relaxing experience indeed. Having phoned reception to report the issue i was told " yes there is a problem with the hot water but its fixed now" somehow it was fixed over the phone without anyone coming out to take a look, the problem continued for all of our stay. 4. Hidden charges, the words all inclusive must not have been explained by Tui at this hotel. The hotel benefits from a beautiful beach on the doorstep, however, if you'd like a sun bed for the week that will set you back 140+ euros. On another occasion we called the 24/7 reception to see if we could get some room service as my partner was unwell, we were in luck the front desk still had some sandwiches left, lucky us, however, if we would like the sandwiches delivered there would be a 15 euro charge, i offered to come and collect them instead but after discussing this with his colleague the member of staff informed me that there would still be a 15 euro charge for the cling film wrapped ham and cheese sandwiches. 5. The entertainment team...

It’s Pontins or Butlins with a beach. Before writing a brief review, I want anyone reading this to know I have the fortune to have worked at Pestana Resorts on Madeira Island for 9 years. When I arrived in Madeira in 2008 I would hear people talking about the new Porto Santo hotel that had opened, however as I am not an All Inclusive type of guy and I never had any interest in AI. This year due to a late booking all I could find was the Pestana All Inclusive, as it was only me and my 9 year old son, I opted for it for 3 nights. I need to say, this is a very nice location and the accommodation is reasonable however you can’t sleep well as the walls are very thin and you hear the family next door until 1am. Then you get woken by the electric service car that runs past the hotel rooms every so often. Food is a horror story, absolutely school dinners, entertainment is pretty dreadful. We paid 550€ for 3 nights, I really should not have travelled, but truth be told, this is like Pontins, it’s very low quality, it’s actually expensive and the only great feature is the location. Avoid this place unless you are after just all inclusive. Frankly it’s a dire experience, an embarrassment to the normally decent Pestana Hotel Group. Especially be careful to anyone with problems with salt, the food here is very highly salted to make it taste acceptable. As I said I worked for Pestana and I quite like the company, I live on Madeira and know many good people who work in Pestana, but this is awful, it’s so bad I would rather have stayed at home or gone camping. Pestana should consider rebranding this as Butlins on sea. One last thing, all inclusive for Pestana is a lie, you pay for the sunloungers on the beach!!!!