A visit to Madeira

I spent seven days in Madeira, starting May 22, 2008. This trip was offered by Sun Holidays (7932 W. Sand Lake Rd., Ste. 302, Orlando, FL 32819; 800/422-8000 or 407/345-0100, www.sunholidaytours.com). Kristen Molloy handled my reservations and did a superb job.

The package included transatlantic airfare; hotel; airport/hotel transfers; a half-day tour of Funchal; daily buffet breakfast at the Baia Azul Hotel, and three buffet dinners at this hotel plus three vouchers for dinners at nearby restaurants.

A driver met me upon my arrival at the Funchal airport and a representative of Festival Tours (who handles Sun Holidays’ tours in Madeira) greeted me at the hotel with all the pertinent vouchers I needed during my stay.

The hotel is centrally located, close to public transportation, restaurants and shops. I had a comfortable room with a balcony overlooking the ocean and gardens. The hotel staff was most helpful.

The cost of this trip was $1,498 per person, double occupancy, plus a $378 single supplement plus applicable taxes. The price varies according to the time of the year. This trip departs every Thursday from the Newark, New Jersey, airport on TAP Portugal. It departs from other cities at extra cost.

For local tours in Funchal I used Strawberry World (Rua do Gorgulho, Centro Comercial Eden Mar, Loja 25, 9000, 107 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal; phone [+351] 291 762 421, www.strawberry-world.com), contacting them through the Internet; my contact was Isa Soussa.

Strawberry World has several excellent tours of the island and superb multilingual guides. I took the full-day “Best of the West” tour, €29 ($45); the full-day “Best of the East” tour, €29, and the half-day “Nun’s Valley” tour, €19 ($29). These did not include lunch, but they stopped at various places where there were plenty of restaurants and eating places to choose from.

I also took the full-day trip to Porto Santo, which cost €73 ($115) first class or €65 ($102) tourist class. On the way to Porto Santo from Madeira, many passengers got sick due to rough seas, but the afternoon sailing was very smooth. This trip can be purchased through Strawberry World, though it is run by the ferry company Lobo Marinho Porto Santo.

The Porto Santo tour included hotel/port transfers. The bus operated by the ferry company picked up passengers at appointed areas that were very well marked on the road; mine was just in front of my hotel. The bus held 45 passengers and could not always go down to the entrances of hotels, therefore it picked people up on the main road.

Upon our arrival in Porto Santo, a local bus with guide picked us up and offered a city tour for an additional €12. This tour was very interesting and included a visit to Quinta das Palmeiras, a beautiful mini-zoo set among lovely gardens — quite a treat in Porto Santo due to its shortage of water.

Anybody who does not want to take the city tour can stay by the Torre Praia Hotel, located by the beach, as it is the dropoff and pickup point in Porto Santo.

I would highly recommend both Sun Holidays and Strawberry World for anybody visiting Madeira. They both did a superb job, with every step of my trip flawlessly carried out.

SONIA IBANEZ

New York, NY