Hotel Villa Maria

The property provides a clean, well-maintained pool area, spacious rooms with air conditioning and complimentary WiFi. Guests appreciate the friendly, attentive staff and convenient location near the lake and dining options.

Whilst all the staff were friendly and helpful, this hotel lacked any soul or atmosphere and our room was so tired and dated. It was however clean and the bar and pool area was nice enough but the rooms definitely need some money spent on them. Breakfast was okay with a continental selection. It’s worth bearing in mind this hotel is approximately a 25 mins walk to the centre of Desenzano, a good 30 mins walk to the train station and a 15 mins walk to the lake shores. Whilst we are keen walkers this was not a problem for us, but we did find it tricky to easily get around to other places relying on any ferries or buses. It was also not easy to pre-book a taxi. For example, we went to Venice for the day and caught a very early train from Desenzano. When we asked to pre-book a taxi to get us to the train station early the next morning we were advised you can’t book a taxi for a local destination until the same day. We then had to get up extra early to ask reception to book us a taxi (this was at 5:30am) to be told the taxi can be booked now but will turn up at any time and be on a metre. A taxi did turn up, which was good, but we were sat at the train station an hour before the train departed, so an even earlier start to our day than was needed and a bit of an aggravation to be honest. It’s obviously a local ‘rule’ that the taxi firms won’t take local bookings until on the day regardless - never known anything so ridiculous. in summary, I would say Lake Garda is beautiful, especially further up north of the lake, but it just didn’t seem geared up to help the tourists get around very easily. We couldn’t always catch a ferry back, unless we caught one at 3:30pm in the afternoon and on a couple of occasions we were standing at a bus stop for at least an hour wondering if the bus was going to turn up. A lovely place to see, but sadly probably wouldn’t go back and definitely wouldn’t stay at Hotel Villa Maria.

Nice but definitely not a four star hotel. The grounds are lovely. Gardens are really pretty and lots of places to sit. The pool area is really nice and wasn’t too busy so always easy to get a sunbed and very clean. The pool bar also nice. All staff really helpful and couldn’t do enough for you. The downsides… the rooms are massively in need of some TLC. We weren’t allocated the right room, a much smaller room with a bed chucked in the corner for two adults and a 7 year old. It was way too small for three people, when I questioned it (the bigger room is what was advertised and on my jet2 booking) we were advised that room was not available. There is no coffee or tea facilities in the room. The air conditioning seems like it is very old and on the floor of the room rather then above so didn’t really do much. Everything has a charge against it, towels for the pool for example and car parking in the garage. Felt like charging for things that should be complimentary and what you would expect from a four star hotel. One thing to bear in mind.. it is pretty remote. About 10 mins walk to Rivoltella which has about 4-5 restaurants but 20-30 minute walk to Desenzano. Buses, taxis or a car are a must really. Also taxis really difficult to get hold of.