This is an absolute MUST do whilst in Funchal, it was exhilarating & I would have happily gone back & done it again. We really dropped on in Funchal as we had the good fortune to be driven around for over four and a half hours by a lovely taxi driver named Jose Nelson Marques Da Silva who only charged us 70 euros and took us all over. He was very informative about the island having been born there & he spoke excellent english as he had spent many years in England, he stopped at many places so that I could take photos, he waited for us whilst we went into churches, botanical gardens, the markets etc, he even took photos with my camera of us at the wicker baset ride so that we didn't have to buy the one that they take, (although I did just to prove to family & friends that I had done it!!).We went to a cliff top where we stood on a glass platform 580 metres above sea level which terrified me but the views were fabulous. He made our trip to Funchal really special and I would look out for him if we ever go back to Madeira.

We enjoyed our toboggan sled ride, it is a fun experience. We were lucky and only had to queue for about 15 minutes. It had rained heavily the night before and there were plastic sheets over the seats as the fabric cushions were sopping. Our photo was taken as we got going and a souvenir photo frame and CD was available for E10 when we got off the sled after our 15 minute ride.
You get off halfway down the hill which is a pain. There are many taxis waiting here and we were approached quickly and offered a taxi for E25, we bartered this down to E15, but only after walking away and the taxi driver ran after us. To be honest, the route was much longer than I thought it would be and the E15 was a fair price I suppose.
Overall, it was expensive for the whole experience but we had been unable to do this on our last visit to Funchal and had regretted not doing it earlier. We would recommend doing it once.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything the previous two reviewers have said about this experience, having done it myself yesterday. It was just a fantastic ride and a one-off that you would not be able to do anywhere else. We tipped the toboggan drivers, as we felt they deserved it and we bought the photo too. It will remind me that I grinned like a Cheshire Cat all the whole way down and would have gone back up and done it all again if I could have! We walked back down the hill into town in about 25 minutes and it was very pleasant (although my calves know about it today). If you are thinking about doing it, I would say stop thinking and just do it - it really is great fun!

exhilarating, but only takes you 1/3 of the way back down. Very pleased we said no thanks to the taxi's and walked back down the hill into Funchal. It is steep, but no problem in flat shoes and well worth doing.