Francavilla al Mare Spa Hotels

This is *not* a 4 star hotel. It’s 3 stars at most. Photos make it seem bigger and more delux. The pool is on the top floor and very small. There should be a bar there, but it really doesn’t operate. Most rooms don’t have a patio. There is no gym. The cafe’ is never manned. There is not enough parking space for all the guests so you get to participate in regular evening “parking wars.” The beach area doesn’t have staff so you have to take your “bathroom white” towels from the hotel, across the trafficked road, and to the beach and then bring them back. Nobody opens up the umbrella and chairs on the beach for you (a real concern for those of a certain age).

We stayed a week here. Accessibility wise, it is only a short walk to the beach and restaurants BUT it is down and then up a very steep hill. Unless you like fish, most of the nearby restaurants will not suit you. Would recommend having a car due to these facts. There is a courtesy mini bus service to a beach which was at a cost of €25 euros per day inc umbrella, chairs etc. We ate dinner in the restaurant twice. The food was very good but is a limited menu. Portion size on the small size. We ate breakfast most mornings which at €5 is good value for money . Varied buffet breakfast with lovely local bread and cakes, fruit yoghurt etc, cold meat and cheeses and scrambled eggs. We booked 6 months in advance and were disappointed with the room allocated to us. We had booked a superior room and queried on the first night if that was what we were in. We were assured we were……but….. on further conversation the next day with very helpful check in desk staff, it became clear we were in one half of a family room. There was not much difference in amenity except the superior room was approx 8-10 m2 bigger…..so a huge difference. We were subsequently moved on night 3 of 7 so this aspect was disappointing and the photos on the website of various rooms are very misleading. We felt slightly cheated over this. There is also an issue with noise from other rooms which is audible for sure but did not cause us any significant issue. In terms of the rooms and public areas, the gardens and pool areas are very pleasant to spend time in. The restaurants for breakfast and dinner are ok too. The rooms and corridors are tired and do need refreshing in our view, especially the bathrooms which are showing signs of age with black mould in a lot of the grouting. Lastly, the staff throughout the hotel were outstanding in every respect. The service was exceptional…… friendly, informative, professional and efficient. 10/10. Had this not been the case we would have reviewed it at 3/5.