This was a classical luxurious hotel in a beautiful setting in Taormina. It was our honeymoon and we were greeted on arrival with a chilled bottle of fizz in the room. We’d booked a junior suite which was spacious and with everything you’d expect. The standard of housekeeping was excellent with a nightly turn down service and new towels etc. Breakfast is taken on the wonderful terrace and is of a very high standard, as expected for a 5* hotel with the staff being very attentive.
The pool is well attended by the lifeguard and is a perfect location to relax and admire the fabulous view.
All in all we had a wonderful time.
The main gripe that we have is that the gym was poor. We booked this hotel for the facilities, including a gym but it had 3 cardio machines, all of which were broken. The air conditioning was ineffective which meant it was hard to use the room comfortably. Despite us raising this and other guests doing the same it seemed very low on their priority list.
There was also a bizarre choice of music on the breakfast terrace, not sure who wanted to listen to Phil Collins live on repeat, Bonjovi, Chris Rhea, Celina Dion blasting out every morning. We thought the birds or something more local may have been more appropriate.
The shuttle service to Taormina is offered hourly but this is very inflexible. There are only 8 seats in total so it’s easy to miss out. We felt they should have been able to put an additional trip on in the evening for dinner for example.