La Brisa Boutique Hotel

I feel completely mis sold by the manager Marisda regarding this properly as well as reading various incorrect reviews in Food and Drink magazine and the Guardian. After spending several weeks in 5 star hotels in Corfu, Albania and Paxos , including IKOS we could not wait finish our holiday in Dhermi at La Brisa. I had spent the previous 9 months communicating with the manager to ensure we were booking the right hotel for our family with the correct room and location. We required an adjoining room for myself and my husband and our two children. The manager Marisda sent me numerous e mails and what’s ap messages showing me the side view rooms with partial sea views. The communication was extensive. The rooms and the view looked lovely and we were assured via e mail that we would be reserved a top floor room with partial sea view. We were also assured that there would be a note on our booking to ensure that our room was not changed. For two nights the total cost was well over £1000. Not the cheap Albania we had heard about but as the WhatsApp videos looked so nice we decided to go with and spend the money. I can honestly say this is the worst hotel we have EVER stayed at and it almost ruined our holiday. We kicked off to a bad start with the receptionist telling us we didn’t have an adjoining room then eventually finding we did and then telling us it was on the first floor, despite all the promise of a top floor. Conveniently the Manager is not in the hotel due to sickness but she did e mail me to apologise and we were offered an upgrade for one room which was absolutely pointless as our children need to be next to us in case they wake up during the night or become sick. They need to feel safe which is why we booked an interconnecting room so that we were all in the same space. We were left beyond frustrated and disappointed. The location of the hotel is so awful that we toyed with leaving Albania early and heading back to Corfu but the logistics with the kids was just too much for the end of our holiday On arrival at the room we found our balconies faced a carp park / building site. One of the reasons we booked the hotel was so that we could have a relaxing drink on our balcony with a lovely view after our kids went to bed! This was not going to happen. I also need to add at this point that Dhermi is horrendous. You could be anywhere, magaluf, falaraki, blackpool, Ibiza on speed!. Three bars outside the hotel are all competing to have the loudest music and the result is a baseline drone that you cannot get away from. It’s not even good music and you can’t decipher one from the other! Our ears rang for days after we left. There is no peace to be had anywhere. The music does stop at 12am but by then everyone is over tired and grumpy. It picks back up in the morning and gets louder as the day progresses and as I mentioned it’s impossible to escape noise from one end of the ***** / promenade to the other. I don’t know where

The room was very nice, spacious, clean, well appointed with an ocean view. The bathroom was poorly designed. The shower did not drain and the water pooled on the floor. We had to use towels as water breaks. A word about the loud music… I get it, it is the beach. The La Brisa website warms about it. Nonetheless, it is truly difficult to understand just how horrible it was until you are in it. It is a constant drone of loud, thumping, techno. Someone in the management team told the investors, “this is cool” when it is actually annoying. The staff were a fashionable, well appointed and handsome bunch. Service was slow and indifferent. Housekeeping was especially slow After being gone the whole day with the “Clean Room” light on, I had to go down to the front desk at 3 PM to finally get it done. The breakfast… it was subpar. I have never seen 50 sunny side eggs stacked in a warmer like that. They were overcooked and tasteless. Coffee was bitter. In summary, La Brisa was not worth the premium price and I would not recommend it.

La Brisa Boutique hotel was a huge dissapointment. I don't know where to start. First of all the location of the hotel is right next to the three noisiest bars in the area. This combined with the walls and windows that are like paper and don't provide any noise reduction ensures that you hear clearly the cacophony of 2000's bangers usually from 4pm and always until the midnight. When we complained about this to the staff they acknowledged it as a known problem that is out of their control and pointed out that their website mentions about it, which is true but their take on it really downplays just how noisy it is. From their website: "During the high season, Dhermiu is a noisy area with music but in the heart of which the comfort and relaxation of a cosmopolitan environment are provided". The music from the bars is not the only source of noise because the walls and doors between the other rooms (our room had door directly to the room next to us) and the corridor are equally thin. You will hear the talking from the rooms next to you or from the corridor clearly. Earplugs for this hotel are highly recommended. We also complained about all of this to the staff but they said there is nothing they can do. All of the hotel's rooms are equally noisy. One evening, at exactly 00:00, a sewage service truck arrived at the hotel and made a loud noise for 45 minutes. We called the reception and they said they don't know why the truck got there so late. We couldn't sleep because of the loud noise. So first we had to listen the loud music from the bars and after that a loud noise from below our hotel room because of the truck. The breakfast was a dissapointment too. There was a coffee machine that served instant coffee. It tasted very bad. To get proper coffee you had to buy it from the barista. The hotel is very expensive and we didn't expect this type of greediness. The breakfast was mediocre at best and always exactly the same. When we arrived to the hotel we expected that there will be one bottle of champagne and chocolate in the room because we ordered it in advance. There was nothing and when we complained about it they said it is there now. We went back to the room and there was just one bottle of prosecco and a card. No chocolate and definitely no champagne. :D From the balcony chair we found previous guest's toe nails. One star comes to the beach. It was just like in the pictures and very comfortable for swimming.

This place is amazing. We escaped from a prepaid room in Durres and drove 2 hours south to Dhermi. The hotel staff and accommodations at La Brisa were very high end. The food was delicious and the beach was well maintained. The water had that aquamarine look and was so clean! I wish we could have stayed longer! Go to La Brisa and avoid Durrës at all costs!

I’ve been at La Brisa recently with my family and we enjoyed it a lot. It was an amazing experience. One of the most luxurious hotel in Albania, probably the best in Dhërmi. The room was spacious and comfortable, the breakfast plenty of choices, the restaurant high class one, the rooftop pool fantastic, the beach amazing, the staff generally polite. 2 things I didn’t like there: 1- The female staff at the rooftop pool told us there are no towels up there, you have to go to the beach to get some and come back here. Only when I insisted, she gave us 2 towels, we were 4 persons. 2. There were people smoking inside the Artur restaurant while we were having lunch and the restaurant was full of people, a lot of children snd infant there. This is unacceptable for this kind of hotel. Anyway it was a great experience there.

Style and interior very nice. Location is good , but can get quite noisy in the evening. On the positive side, music stops at 24.00 o`clock. Good breakfast, but terrible coffee included. You could order and pay extra , but this should not be necessary when you look at the price you pay to stay in this hotel. Very serviceminded employees in the reception. The rooftop with pool is very small. The roof has few sunbeds , expencive prices and is almost always out of towels. We also had a towel issue at the beach, they would not let us take towels with us on a boat trip unless we booked the trip with them.