Amazing base to explore the island, perfect for families : The upstairs balcony offers stunning panoramic views, with a lovely BBQ and seating area, by far our favourite place in the villa. The villa is really spacious throughout and the kitchen is really well-equipped if you plan to cook properly. We found the villa was very clean on arrival, with plenty of towels for the bathrooms and poolside. The games room has both a 3/4-size snooker table and a darts board, along with a couple of games sets (poker, ludo, and cards), and a connection for your phone for music. The wifi worked really well throughout the villa and was super easy to connect to Netflix etc, there were plenty of books left from previous travellers and a few DVDs. Within walking distance, there are a couple of small local shops selling fresh bread, fruit/veg if you run out of things and a couple of nice local restaurants. It only takes about 10/15 mins to walk down to the Christ Rei and the cable car was 10euros down to a pretty pebbled beach. There is a larger supermarket, 5/10 min drive away, if you need to do a bigger shop. We were able to get taxis really quickly via Bolt and went to Funchal a few times (11 euros for a 6-seater taxi), where there is tons to do and see. The GuestReady app the villa uses for support was always very responsive, and I'd recommend downloading it before you arrive.
We were a bit disappointed that, having contacted the villa beforehand to ask about getting the pool heated (we went in feb), we were told to bring Euros in cash. When we got there (with the cash), the pool was unheated, and we were then told to pay by bank transfer and had to wait 24-48 hours for the pool to heat up, so we paid for a week (Sat - Sat), but in reality, we only got half a week (Tues-Sat).
Some oven gloves and a couple of tea towels would have been useful. Probably worth saying that the fancy bath in the master bedroom is for display only!