Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Pool, friendly staff, value for money |
| Disadvantages: |
Rooms a little out - dated |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
We visited Italy for our family holiday (parents and two grown-up kids) and stayed at the Villa Maria in Sorrento for a long weekend on a friend's recommendation. It has 80 rooms and offers B&B and half board accomodation (we opted for the former as there are so many lovely restaurants in Sorrento to investigate in the evening).
Location: Its on the outskirts of central Sorrento, which means it is a short 5-10 minute walk to restaurants and the train station. Sorrento is itself in easy reach of sites such as Pompeii and Capri and Ischia although there is no beach at Sorrento itself (there are wooden pontoons which you can hire a sunbed on and swim off).
Ambience: We found the staff to be friendly and the rooms adequate and clean, though they could do with updating the decor. The pool area is nice to spend some time in the sun, and breakfasts were good. The hotel is 600m from the sea - the supposed 'sea views' in some of the rooms aren't much to write home about.
All in all a good basic hotel, and reasonably good value for Sorrento.
The hotel's website is http://www.hotelvillamaria.it/english/albergo.htm which has full pictures though doesn't seem to have been updated recently as it is still showing 2004 room rates!
