L'Andana Tenuta la Badiola

Splendid place. Happy, attentive service. Awesome pool, long enough for lap swimming. Superb breakfast. Thanks to all for making our stay such a delight. (Two hundred characters.) (Two hundred characters.) (Two hundred characters.)!

The estate is simply stunning. An oasis of calm retreat, enveloped by vineyards and olive groves. The imposing manor sitting pride of place amidst it all. It is breathtaking. The rooms are large and well equipped and the bathrooms large. So! Why do I only give it 3 stars. Well! It was a bit "all fur coat and no knickers". The *********** app took me up a back drive to the back door, so I missed the experience of arriving up the main drive and first impressions count, as they set the scene. On entering reception 5 staff members were all there looking towards me. I felt intimidated. A very friendly lady took me to my room. The room was spaciois and well equipped but a major Booboo, the bed was at right angles to the amazing view, so whilst sitting on the bed one only got a restricted view but stared at the tv and an artificial fire. Huge design mistake. The plastic seal on the shower door and the tray could do with some bleach, but apart from that the room was nice. The inroom bar had red, white and rose all from the estate at a very reasonable €13. It was very nice. I wanted to bookthe fine dining but it was full so ate in the villa. I sat down and ordered a glass of red and a bittle of water, both arrived promptly. 34 minutes later the matre'd came to take my order, but I had not been given the menu. The menu was restricted only 3- 4 choices and all of the Secondi were from the BBQ not really enough choice for a place at this level. I ordered another glass of red which never arrives. Disappointing as it was not busy and there were sufficient staff. At breakfast I was given the wrong coffee, full caffine instead of decaf, as I never drink caffine, I had quite a few trips to the loo. It is simply stunning and elegant but at this level they need to get the basics right and focus on the customer experience.

Hard to write this review as I really want to be positive about L’Andana as I was so excited to visit but our stay could have been improved in many aspects. To start with the positives, the hotel and its location is beautiful. The staff are all very friendly, accommodating and available when needed. The rooms are clean and well serviced. We had two adjoining suites in the new building which were very spacious for a family of four. The suites were linked by a dining room with a small kitchen area and fridge, which ended up being quite useful over the week. On the negative side, the hotel really didn’t offer what is expected of a five star hotel. The gym is extremely poorly equipped (lack of useable dumbbells, broken exercise bike, no bench, no chin up bar etc etc). The breakfast food was quite limited, the food to order was more or less the same as the buffet and fresh eggs to order was at extra cost. There was very little food to order around the pool and no service offered by any of the pool staff. By way of example, we spent a whole day at the pool and watched staff sitting around doing absolutely nothing all day. If they had offered water and/or drinks we would have happily ordered some!!! I have never been to a hotel with no pool service and was astounded that the hotel management choose to miss this opportunity. We used the driving range and the golf clubs available there but they were extremely old (think garage sale type golf clubs!) and the balls were so old they were almost unusually. The hotel website advertises there is a golf practice course to play but there simply is not. Sadly the whole place felt tired and unloved.