Marettimo Residence

This place is ok if you only want a very clean room and a bed for the night. But it wasn’t ok that the pool was closed and the breakfast basic. The jacuzzi was available but freezing! It was the end of season but it is still our holiday and a bit more oomph would go a long way. And I thought that charging an extra 5 euros for fresh orange juice was out of order. But the lovely young girl with curly hair and a positive attitude and smile is a credit to the team.

My biggest gripe is that the hotel sent a car over to the ferry to collect luggage, then they bring it to the room. On the 2 minute drive, they damaged my case, which was perfectly fine when I gave it to them. Absolutely raging, especially as they did nothing to apologise or attempt to fix it or even source me a new one to compensate (they cracked it by what seems to have been due to dropping it, or perhaps it landing on something in the van they used, as the handle has a hole and the crack is then from the handle itself). I raised it with them immediately, but nothing. And it had a built-in scale so was expensive! Secondly, the facilities: the ‘swimming pool’ is a dipping pool. And it is dirty, with black marks on it. The hob in my (decent sized) room is cracked, and there are only two plugs, neither of which is by the bed for things like charging your phone so it is within easy access while doing so. A number of switches don’t work, and there is no key to the actual door, just to the slotted door, which is quite poor from a security point of view. The clothes drying rack outside is rusted, and there are no pegs to secure laundry. The lights in the room are dull, which I usually don’t mind, but I had all of them (the ones that worked) on, and it was still really dull. Finally, and most importantly, there is NO air con. There is a ceiling fan, but it has no benefit when to keep bugs out you have to keep doors closed. A simple bug screen would sort that out - on the balcony door it would then allow cooler evening air in, whilst keeping bugs out. Check out is early too - 10am. My ferry is at 2pm so not sure if I want to trust them with my suitcase again; I can only imagine the abuse it would have with them for four hours when in two minutes they wrecked it. On the plus side, it is a pretty location, and it is close to the village, but you definitely need to bring some water with you as the charges here compared to trapani are vastly higher. And some salt, oil and vinegar, as there is no prospect of buying individual sachets, so there is a risk of waste. I like the island, but the residence needs to sort out basic things before I would consider returning. I have no clue how it achieved the rating it has.

Just returned from Sicily having travelled with Inntravel. We stayed in what they call a "deluxe apartment". It is hard to think of anywhere less luxurious. It is a basic poorly maintained and dreary chalet with no comforts of any kind. There is a small kitchen area but I can't imagine anyone wanting to use it. External areas are OK although I am not sure that a couple of palm trees constitute a "tropical garden" and the jacuzzi was not working. Breakfast is the minimum they can get away with, albeit served in a nice location. Staff were very mixed, some helpful some not. Special mention must go to the girl in their reception booth who is disinterested to the point of being rude. I gave two stars rather than one because of the remote and quite attractive location although even that would probably have been better earlier in the year.