Reviewed 01 Jun 2008 by Matthew King
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
A host of highlights but walking to the "Green Caldron" was awesome. Spectacular backdrop of green mountains, waterfalls framed by ferns and mounds of mosses, and spine tingling drops into deep unseen valleys. The plays of sun through the cathedrals of trees was amazing. Madeira really is a magical island. We have never seen so many different varieties of flowers, shrubs and trees growing in such exuberant abundance. The levadas provide flat walking in dramatic mountain scenery...something we have never previously experienced.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
Bring a good map to compliment the written walking notes you risk being lost without one (We think the operator should include one with the walking notes, they are only £5-6 and in the context of the overall cost of the holiday a small price to pay for not getting lost). The walking notes alone are only just about OK. Just about!!
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, and minimized impacts on the environment?
Yes. Generally a good choice of local hotels well situated to allow access to local restaurants required for evening meals.
4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?
A very good holiday. If I were to suggest improvements They would be:
1) More detailed walking notes with a map of Madeira included.
2) A better standard of hotel on the last day (Funchal). I realise it would increase the cost a bit but your memory of a holiday is often influenced a lot by your last day.
3) The walks were well chosen and provided a good variety of landscape however two of the walks did involve a fair bit of downhill walking on quiet roads. I think these could be modified.
Reviewed 14 Mar 2007 by Liz Fuller
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
Most of the walks, which offered beautiful but intermittently vertiginous views.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
Take swimming things (and take them with you on the north coast path walk).
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, and minimized impacts on the environment?
To an extent, except that I was travelling alone, which made lifts and baggage moves fairly uneconomical.
Reviewed 03 Nov 2006 by Judith Bishop
We had a brilliant week in Madeira and it surpassed all expectations which is saying something as we'd been looking forward to it for over 20 years (I'm not kidding!!)
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
It would be impossible to pick out the most memorable thing as it was hitting the jackpot nearly all the time, but I suppose it was the "lost worlds" that the levadas led us into were the most magical aspect. Vertical mountains -up and down! - clothed in greenery, brilliant blue skies, thundering waterfalls...Wonderful.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
Tips for other travellers: take mosquito repellent for the nights!
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, and minimized impacts on the environment?
The holiday definitely benefited local people but definitely was not environmentally friendly. For instance, our minibus would drive miles to collect and deposit us and our bags when there were many taxis just waiting for business on the doorstep and a fantastic bus service which we did use occasionally.
4. Any other comments?
Unfortunately there was a real down side to the local organisation, that we went through: Given that the holiday wasn't cheap we felt that the support for the walk element was woefully inadequate. Here are some of the reasons:
Apart from the 6 walk instructions, a list of hotels, a map of Funchal and instructions for how to meet the driver at the airport we received no other information. We were not even issued with "Vouchers" which all the hotels and minibus firm asked us for, which was awkward and embarrassing as our Portuguese didn't stretch to explaining why.
The walk instructions were minimal to say the least and actually incorrect in places (saying "turn left" when after much searching we discovered it should have said "right"). We had taken an old walk guide with us and often referred to that rather than the notes provided because they were so inadequate. Some walks had sketch maps with next to nothing on them and were not even to scale and some were taken off other documents and were slightly more helpful.
We felt that there could have been much more information provided to explain the walks/villages etc including a map of the island showing us where the walks and hotels were. More information about cafes and buses and taxi phone numbers would have been appreciated.
We did wonder when someone last walked the suggested routes. One of the walks had been completely shut for some while during major renovations - we were lucky that it had recently reopened but there was no mention of this in the instructions and our guess is that it had been a while since anyone had checked them.
We also used other books to plan alternative walks when the weather prevented us from doing the suggested one (some of the tunnels were impassable due to flooding) and we would have been really stuck and frustrated if we had just relied on the walks we were sent.
The bonus of the organisation is that they booked us lovely hotels in fabulous locations. We were also very fortunate that the minibus driver we had most days was charming, informative and most helpful, although a couple of his colleagues could have done with some training from him!
Read the operator's response here:
Walking notes are a subjective thing and while these clients were not happy with them others have thanked us for their detail. This is a popular holiday and is walked frequently, we depend on client feedback for any problems with routes etc to keep them as up to date as possible. While the walk that was mentioned was closed we had given earlier clients an alternative but again these clients would not have been aware of this. We did supply alternative walks and to say we did not is absolutely wrong, we do also supply on the notes times of buses etc.
The reason that these clients had a 'brilliant' holiday is because we had done all the organisation for them, something they appear to have overlooked - the hotels, drivers etc were all down to us. They were never let down at all and we do also supply an emergency number for them to call in Madeira if needed.
As for the environmental impact: all the hotels we use are small family run establishments run by Madeirans. This holiday changes hotels 5 times in a week and to run smoothly and efficiently it depends on good reliable drivers who know where the walks commence and are completely trustworthy with luggage. Using buses and taxis is completely out of the question here. Instead we again use a local company to do all the transfers employing local people, they always put together more than one transfer into a trip (something clients would not see or be aware of) - this is far more efficient and reduces environmental impact.
We regret the problem with the 'vouchers' and have apologised for this, we do not use a voucher system and we have taken steps to make sure this does not happen again.
Reviewed 23 Oct 2005 by Ariane Newlands
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
I loved the time spent in Machico, its a lovely place to relax after a day walking. However, the best for me was the walking up in the North (I think it was the North) where Madeira is luscious and the scenery is spectacular. The best day's scenery for me was the first day's walking, and the tunnel walks.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
To make use of the luggage courier service - you don't have to carry your luggage on the walks so don't scrimp on necessities (plasters and lotions for your feet!).
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, and minimized impacts on the environment?
Absolutely, the whole package used local transport, small hotels and produce. The walks were clean and completely uncommercialised (no neon signs to direct the way, but great directions such as "2 meters to the left of the bus stop you will see a path...." etc).
4. Any other comments?
I would give my holiday in Madeira 5 stars. This was the first organised walking holiday abroad I have been on. I was a little hesitant because I like free walking and don't like group walking (Many of the Munro's in Scotland are remote, and that's what I had been used to). However, the planning and the thought that went in to the maps and the walks enabled me to navigate myself, and negated the need to join a lead walk - which was perfect. I would love to do the whole trip again - it was excellent!
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