Pros: view from the balcony, especially at sunset. Fantastic. Just take a bottle and sit and watch Decent size and quality of room, despite ants. Balcony itself - large (some rooms have small). Location between Funchal and Cabo is nice.

Cons: decidely indifferent, almost to a person, staff. Not rude, just not happy to be there. Tasteless breakfasts, which you can supplement with a 2 euro instant coffee by the pool. Atmosphere is a bit glorified retirement home for middle Europe. You pay for wifi - 4 per hour or 10 per day, but then to use it you have to stay in the lobby. To me, this is preposterous. Perhaps for retireees its no issue. Because we never ate at the hotel we did need to shop for snacks and water etc. Unfortunately the room had ants who streamed out during the evening and a couple times in middle of night I absent mindely reached for a cracker or half banana and...... So we rented a fridge. No fridge in the room but you rent for 5 euros a day. There is bar open from 1800 (with only 1 available red wine, weirdly) which has rather odd live acts from 2130. We saw a couple. I loved the magician on Saturday but there was no audience for the poor fellow.......... All in all, we found the place a little depressing - but closing our eyes and going straight to balcony every day worked well, sort of). The restaurants on the beach to the left aren't bad..... We did abandon this hotel in the end in favor of a far superior place bizarrely ranked a couple notches below Orca by Trip's system - and were very happy to have done so.

It is a very special hotel, wonderful for those who do not look for crowds. It is situated some 15 minuted bus ride to the center of Funchal. It is quiet, clean, with a beach (partially sandy, partially pebbled), a number of nice restaurant around, including some on the oceanfront. The rooms are very big, so are most of the balconies. The beds are comfortable You hardly need air conditioning as there is always breeze from the ocean. Still you can rent a fan for some charge. The same is right about a fridge and a safe box. We did not close the glass door, so we fell asleep and woke up listening to the music of Atlantic. As all the rooms have an ocean view it is difficult to miss beautiful sunsets and sunrises. The place offers a very good breakfast. Almost every day there is a nice entertainment programme in the bar.The staff was friendly and helpful.. We found it was strange - the hotel was full, but we did not notice it a bit. The feeling was very cosy, comfortable, relaxing.

Location
Pro - fantastic location set in the cliffs above Praia Formosa beach - the views of the ocean are amazing and we left our room doors open all night and fell asleep listening to the ocean.
Con - the hotel is very isolated - it is 3 miles to the nearest supermarket and when the courtesy bus is not running - i.e holidays, Saturday and Sunday - it is very difficult to get out and about. The lifeline is the Funchal yellow buses - you need to buy 2 Giro cards from reception (one each) and get a timetable
Rooms
Pro - the rooms are very large and comfortable with massive balconies - big enough to take a table, 2 chairs and 2 sunbeds
Con - there is very little storage - we ended up leaving our clothes in a suitcase all the time
Food
Pro - breakfast was great - lots of fresh fruit and fresh bread, cereals,cheese and ham and hot English breakfast
Con - the main course was limited in choice for English palates. We never went hungry though - filled up on lovely home made soups but we weren't sorry when we started to eat out in the 3rd week
It is possible to swap dinner for 3 course lunch round the pool - a much better option
Entertainment
Pro - a brilliant trio called 3D played twice a week - we would have paid to listen to them - they were class musicians with a brilliant sense of fun - got everyone dancing.
Con - the magician did the same show 3 times - very boring
Staff
Pro - this is a family run hotel - the staff are amazing! They cannot do enough for you - always cheerful and friendly - must mention Angelo - a great character in the evening bar and Sandra - the head of the restaurant
Con - there is no con to the staff but the hotel does charge a lot for extras - sunbeds on the balcony, safe, wi-fi, fridge, pool/snooker.
Warning
Other people have mentioned the steep climb from the pool to the hotel. We are fairly fit nearly 70 year olds - still playing golf and tennis - but the hill was a killer - we had to rest to get our breath 4 times coming up. In another couple of years, we couldn't go there.

We only paid £700 for 3 weeks at this hotel with Mercury Direct but we still can't make our mind up about this hotel - would we go there again - don't know!!

We stayed there only one week but it was wonderful week! Hotel Orca Praia was the best choice for us. Thanks to other reviews here. We are young couple but we don´t like to lay all days on the beach or go to to disco at night. We prefer calm places and harmony of nature. Only noise you can hear at Orca Praia Hotel is sound of Atlantic ocean, but when you close large windows you can´t hear nothing. We enjoyed sitting on balcony and watching ocean. And we enjoyed breakfasts and dinners also. The meal was very good and waitress and service was excellent. The room service and service on reception was great. Really very kind people work there! So there´s nothing we can complain of. Maybe for people who have some mobility difficulties could be problem to walk down to the beach and pool. The pool was fantastic. There´s nice promenade between Funchal and Camara de Lobos. Camara de Lobos is nice place to visit for dinner or glas of wine. It´s a small romantic village. Walk to Funchal takes us about 1 hour I think. Better is to take a bus. Bus stop is straigt above hotel entrance. You can buy ticket for public transport in Funchal. We bought it for one week and we really enjoy yellow buses :-) For 7 days and 2 persons it costs 43 euros. Madeira is wonderful and this hotel provides you calm and friendly background for your island explore.