Pluses first. Location is really good. It is about a 1.5 mile walk to the center of Funchal, but Lido 1 is in a nice neighborhood with plenty of great restaurants around. An Island Apart has a great customer portal and it was super easy to request an early check-in and late check-out (at very reasonable rates), and order transportation to and from the airport. Nice perk! The apartment is spacious and the upstairs balcony was particularly nice.
Minuses. The apartment was fairly clean, however the kitchen table still had stuck on food and crumbs in the chairs from previous guests. We also found a drawer full of underwear. General items you expect in a VRBO were lacking. There were no paper towels (had to buy our own), only 1 kitchen towel, one dishwasher pod, no dish soap, etc. Towels were an issue as well. Although this is a 3-bedroom, 2 ½ bath unit, we were only given 1 towel each for me and my husband. We called and texted about the towels and it took a day to get 2 more. Normally we would wash the towels but with no dryer it was taking quite a while for items to air dry. My husband was told they only allow one towel per person. IMO, it is a better guest experience to equip the house to the number of bedrooms/bathrooms. Barking dogs. There are several (very annoying) barking dogs as neighbors.
Not a positive or a negative, but good info to share – there are approximately 70 stairs from the main road to the apartment. We liked the exercise, but if you have trouble with stairs, this may not be the place for you.