Giardini Naxos Hotels

Holiday Club: Under the volcano

We booked a package tour as it's not easy to find direct flights to Sicily from Sweden, so this is where we based ourselves for a few days in between other trips around the island. Very nice duplex apartments which was great as my dad was travelling with us so he had his own top floor and there was also a balcony. Some rooms have Etna views and you can see the majestic volcano from all over the huge grounds. These grounds were in fact one of the reasons for picking this hotel since we were going with a five-year-old and she could indeed walk around a lot without us worrying too much about cars, and it was all green and pleasant. They also had a small childrens pool in the quite plain pool area. This was next to a restaurant which was always full unless you booked, but there were other little restaurants in a block just outside the hotel complex which is nice since it is not immediately in the centre of Giardini but a bit of a (nice) walk away. You are near a major bus stop for excursions and airport buses though and there is a beach just across the street in between two bigger hotels (belonging to those so you need to pay to use it). There is a small supermarket on site as well as tennis and football courts. I understand that they sometimes have special activities in high season (we stayed in May which was quiet).

So what is wrong...? Well...I guess you have to live with cockroaches in many a Mediterranean hotel but I have stayed in better ones all over the Med and escaped them so I guess they do have a problem here even if we only saw a couple in our bathrooms (that's enough for me). We also had to wait a long time to get checked in, even by charter standards. The kitchen was not the most equipped in the world either and we had to ask the cleaner to show us how the cooker worked. The tour operators which we travelled with claim in their recent catalogues that the hotel has undergone refurbishments in 2006 so who knows, they might have really upgraded it...

Unique Quality: The huge gardens with lemon groves and Etna view.

• Opinion of Price: N/A
• Address: Recanti
• Website: http://www.hotelclub.net/hotel.reservations/Holiday_Club_Hotel_Giardini_Naxos.htm
• Related to: Family Travel, Beaches
• Written June 2, 2004

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