Mahara Hotel & Wellness

La camera era molto bella, ampia e pulita con vista mare. L'hotel ha un'ottima posizione. A piedi è possibile raggiungere il paese, ma il mare antistante non è granché.

I agree with the other reviews that this is 3-star hotel, not a 4-star. The hallways and rooms are OK, but not stellar. The elevators need maintenance - the growling noise they make is disturbing so we didn't use them. The hallways are utilitarian, not attractive. The room was OK but the bathroom plumbing was not maintained - showerhead corroded and squirting all over, sink stopper control missing. The real complaint is breakfast. You sit in a vast ballroom with little to no decoration. The overall feeling is sterility. The food is OK, just OK. The juice machine puts put some kind of over-sweetened KoolAid. It's horrible. It was citrus season in Sicily, so this is not about availability but saving money. Most fruit was canned - no other hotel on our visit had canned fruit. The overall quality and variety of the buffet was poor to middling.

Please read before booking. The hotel is nice and the staff are really friendly and helpful, especially Angela. She went above and beyond to help me with getting to the only pharmacy on the island on a weekend (this was a 10 min drive from the hotel). The other pharmacies on the island are closed Monday - Friday so please take as much medication that you may need. I had been suffering from a severe migraine whilst on holiday and had used up the medicine I had already packed from the UK. Angela arranged for the hotel's transfer service to take me there and bring me back to the hotel. YOU NEED A CAR for this part of the island as there is not much to do that is in walking distance. We could not get a cab for love nor money out there and found ourselves stuck and bored. We searched looking for car hire which there is only one back at the airport which is a 45 min drive away! There is the beach which is a stone's throw away from the hotel but it is rocky with no beach to sit on and is full of rubbish. The closest beach is about a 30 min walk away where there are sunbeds, and a beach bar. Most of the food is all fish & pork based and I found it difficult to find authentic Italian restaurants in walking distance. Most food places are closed in the afternoon and re-open again at 7pm for dinner. If you want to have lunch you'll either have to eat at the hotel or do some research for places that are open during lunching hours (we struggled to find any). The hotel's breakfast was ok but mainly consisted of cakes and croissants which were sitting out from 7am, so don't be surprised if you see lots of flies hanging around. The only savoury option is boiled egg, scrambled egg and bacon. Over the weekend there are stalls right outside of the hotel which consist of street food and many stalls to purchase jewellery & all sorts of Italian souvenirs. The night time is busy and full of life, there is also a fun fair ground not far from the stalls for the children which is open late. We attended a hotel event which was lovely for 25 euro each, this consisted of buffet food (only mussels and mussel pasta as a main, no alternative options) , live band music, a firework display and plenty of wine! WiFi didn't work in the hotel, so be plan to get roaming add on. Overall, a pleasant hotel to stay in but the location is very cut off and quite run down in some places. A car is A MUST. I wouldn't stay here again but had to make the most of the time being somewhere different, we were a bit disappointed but enjoyed relaxing by the pool the most, as this was all we could really do!