Until we stayed at Serena we had never had such an awful, expensive & unsatisfactory holiday!
We stayed there through RCI, who received a very damning letter when we got back to the UK & as a result the offending hotel is no longer on their books but it should never have been - aren't they meant to inspect each resort?
This all happened a few years back & we have now recovered our faith in human nature.
Joe Vella leaves a lot to be desired. We made the mistake of paying initially by cc as we suspected not too much at the point of arrival. However, the state of reception should have been a give-away! We went for 1/2 board as there isn't too much choice of eating establishment. What a mistake. The food was unpalletable. Xlendi had a lot of stray cats & now I kniw why they looked so well fed! They were grateful for the "catty bags" which were liberally offered after a sitting at Serena. And that was the evening meal - strange combinations abounded. But breakfast was the real vomit-inducing experience - don't know where the eggs were from but I'm surprised there wasn't a salmonella outbreak! We opted out of any kind of board after 24hours.
Our room was OK-ish but required so many "extras" that we down-graded & what we got was revolting, badly equipped, the aircon just about held on to the ceiling & the shower was rusty.
Oh, & I have mobility issues but the lift wasn't working - the hotel is up on a cliff, so many, many steps were involved - great.
And then there was the timeshare presentation, if one can call it that! It was Mr Vella rtrying to pressurize us into signing & he wasn't expecially pleasant about it. This was the last straw & we checked out.
Went down all the steps & checked into the 1st hotel we came to. It was bliss - lovely food, comfy beds, up-front, sensible rates & courteous stafff.
When the cc statement arrived there was a mysterious charge on it & to this day, after getting every banking/legal people involved no less!
Never going back to Gozo - it's nice enough but not a place for non-divers really. Mind you the Vella saga won't have helped in the perceptions. If you go, do stay at the Hotel San Andrea - not too expensive, gorgeous accommodations, sea-front & yummy food!
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Advantages: Nice aspect and good sunroof, spacious rooms. Disadvantages: Surcharges not mentioned upfront and very expensive, lots of hidden extras, service mediocre to poor
Advantages: Nice aspect and good sunroof, spacious rooms. Disadvantages: Surcharges not mentioned upfront and very expensive, lots of hidden extras, service mediocre to poor
Jan 12th, 2007
very helpful by (25%):
helpful by (75%):
