Hotel Villa Fiorita, Sorrento > Reviews > Costa dei Fawlty

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Poor
Quality of Rooms	Poor
Standard of Service	Terrible
Quality of Facilities	Terrible

Advantages:	It's in Italy
Disadvantages:	Everything else

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Villa Fiorita is advertised as a three star hotel in Sorrento on the Amalfi coast, justly famed for its natural beauty.

First word of warning. Whilst the hotel is advertised as being in Sorrento, it is actually six kilometres from Sorrento. Whilst this might seem a short distance…be warned!!! Traffic on the Amalfi coast, apart from featuring some of the craziest, dangerous driving I’ve seen anywhere in the world – bar none – is sloooowwwwwwwww. There is just the one main road, it is two-lanes although drivers often invent a third non-existent one, and often you may well be sitting in a tailback for over an hour. Further, if you do not have your own transport the bus would often be full and just whiz past the hotel entrance leaving anyone waiting there stranded for at least another half-hour. Taxis are available but will set you back at least £10 for a trip to Sorrento. Expenses will mount up very quickly if you rely on this method of transportation, and negate any saving you might have made by staying out of town.

The first problem arose upon arrival at the hotel. I had requested a sea-view and the receptionist (I suspect one of the family who owns/runs the place) informed us that he had no such request from the agents. It was a weekend so the information could not be verified and, unfortunately, the internet was not in working order.

The room was small-to-adequate with the bed was just about adequate, unfortunately the same cannot be said for either the pillows or the bedding which were both skimpy, if not actually stingily. The air-conditioning was not working.

It was impossible to obtain a blackout which can wake you up earlier than you want to on holiday, but the “cake” was taken by the noise. Being in an area full of farms and allotments it is impossible to get a good night’s sleep at this place. The dogs, one of which I suspect actually belonged to the hotel as it was not heard from after a complaint on the first morning, bark all night long. One starts then another and you know what it’s like they refuse to let another one have the final bark.

As if that wasn’t bad enough disoriented cocks start crowing at about 4 a.m. (light pollution). The hotel hardly helps by not having adequate noise insulation for either what happens outside or in the corridors. The hotel plumbing also made a stupendous amount of noise, so whenever anyone in the hotel needed to go…..

Breakfast was just about ok. The one thing that can be said is that they make a proper cup of tea – not always easy to find on the continent even in posh hotels. You get toast, croissants, lots of jams and preserves and some cheap ham and cheese. There is no variety from day to day and the dining-room could get quite busy.

The reception area is small and has a small bar nearby, it leads on to the restaurant and a couple of settees with a large screen television which I suppose passes for the television room. I did find useful the weather repost which they posted daily on a board next to the reception area.

As mentioned above the internet facility was not working. A storm had apparently affected the telephone lines. Mysteriously, this did not seem to affect telephones in the hotel or the internet facility in the neighbouring hotel.

The hotel also advertised parking for residents. Well, on the mountain road above the hotel – you actually descend some steps to reach the hotel’s entrance – there was a lay-by which might allow three cars to be parked, probably shared with the hotel adjacent to Villa Fiorita. The receptionist took the car keys to park the vehicle. I never saw where it was parked but did see the car parked by the roadside on a couple of occasions. I believe the lay-by was the sum of the hotel’s parking and, what’s more, the odometer showed that the car had been driven for a couple of kilometres. It happens to be the distance, there and back, to Sant’ Agata where the nearest bakery is to be found. I think the hotel’s parking rules were just a convenient way for the hotel to pick up their groceries without spending anything on petrol!

There are no lifts and this, together with the number of steps required just to get to the entrance means the hotel is wholly unsuitable for anyone with disabilities, the elderly and I do not believe the stairs looked very safe for those with young children either.

There is a swimming-pool which was not open at the time of my stay. Hygiene and cleanliness were good, but they tend to be in most Italian hotels. Although advertised, there was no safe and there were no coffee-making facilities in the room.

The cost of the room was about £58.00 a night, about £3 per night of which was for the nonexistent sea-view. Breakfast is generally included and there appears to be a half-board option which I would not recommend. The restaurant always looked empty in the evenings (it is closed for lunch) which does not say much for its reputation amongst any locals living nearby or about the freshness of whatever they might serve.

All in all then I cannot recommend this hotel to anyone. It has potential, but potential in itself is not a basis on which to recommend a hotel. If they were to resolve the problem of the noise it would be a start. Frankly I believe the problem may lie in that it is a family-run hotel ran by a family which does not particularly want to run a hotel. A change of ownership or management might be the only way to save this place. Additionally the traffic situation makes it somewhat out of the way and the only justification for staying out of the way is if you have a marvelous hotel or if it’s dirt cheap. This is not a marvellous hotel and while it is cheap I cannot recommend it for the reasons stated above.

I booked the room through lastminute.com. Although I was eventually given a refund for part of the cost, they took about three months to sort it out and claimed, which I can believe, the booking was in order and it was the hotel who lied. Somehow I can believe that.

So if you do go to the Sorrento coast and want to travel around….remember to locate yourself in or near a town centre and best give this place a miss!