Dioscuri Bay Palace, Agrigento > Reviews > Faulty Towers!

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Average
Quality of Rooms	Good
Standard of Service	Good
Quality of Facilities	Average

Advantages:	Great view of the sea, great swimming pool
Disadvantages:	Coach loads, not for younger segment

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Please don't let the title put you off!

The hotel is actually very nice next to a stream on the beach front in a little town outside of agrigento.

We flew in to Palermo Airport and drove down to the hotel on the other side of Sicily. Words of warning here. The map shows a motorway going next to Palermo (like a bypass). Don't take it unless you want to have a hear attack. The Sicilians drive cars like nutters and all of them had dents! and in Palermo you have free for all with mopeds and pedestrians on this alleged motorway...

After getting through Palermo the road is more sedate through the hills and mountains of Sicily, you will travel through Mafia country but they always leave tourists alone (bad for their reputation...)

Agrigento is another nightmare traffic wise with no lane markings, directions, traffic lights are "advisory" and right of way on rounadbouts is dependent on who gets there first!

As there are no signs telling you where to go or anything like that just take the road (any road) to San Leone and get to the beach front, follow the beach front road to the marina and behind the petrol station with the restaurant is your destination.

The staff at reception were very curtious, spoke good english and were helpful. The room was in good condition and refurbished. We decided to take a little rest before venturing out for a meal.

We were woken up by a massive thundderstorm. This is when the problems started. The downpour was so massive that the air con was flooded and gave us a nice shower. The swimming pool overflowed into the car park flooding the cars. One of the conference rooms was flooded (don't ask me how!) and the restaurant which was under a lovely 1920s skylight feature was being rained on. The phones short circuited and the satellite TV aerial fell off.

At least the electricity stayed on and there was plenty of water. The staff were understandably running around like headless chickens. We opted to walk accross the street to a nice pizzeria and ate there. In fact I would reccommend you avoid the hotel restaurant as it is definetly geared for the german market...

There are lots of nice little restaurants and for some reason all the locals like to poke fun at the americans. Fair enough...

Asking the hotel staff for directions is useless. They have very little sense of direction and time it should take to go anywhere. Syracause we were assured was 2 hours away, 4:30 later we arrived there. You have to remember that all the locals drive at warp 9 in their fiat pandas. The local maps are no better with motorways on them that are yet to be built.

Once we got on the second day most things were working apart from the air con and telephone. The rooms were actually very comfortable. The swiimming pool was excellent with a fantastic view of the coast, the terrace area was inviting to eat outside. The staff where friendly. Breakfast was good although the waiting staff did not speak any english.

As long as it does not rain this hotel is lovely otherwise at first drop of rain the placce starts to fall apart, but is great fun to watch