Cala San Giovanni — Attraction in Polignano a Mare

Nice infrastructure but expensive considering the service or lack there of. Staff incapable of treating clients with politeness even in obvious situations such as their bank system not working. A simple “sorry” goes a long way. I found a credit card in the sand and the staff snatched it out of my hands and fought over who was going to return it. Lunch staff does their best but looks absolutely miserable. Strange and super loud announcement starts 30mins before closure asking people to leave and repeats itself many times, making it impossible to enjoy the last 30mins so might as well consider that your day ends at 6:30pm and not 7:00pm as they might make you believe. Never seen a Lido practice this strange “cattle herding” system.

I can imagine the owner will reply with some sort of bogus lie as he has to other negative reviews instead of actually taking constructive feedback and trying to make his place a more caring and service oriented establishment. As it stands, this place is not worth the money.

Side note: they have a badge in the entrance saying it is a 100% plastic free business when cups and lunch covers are indeed 100% plastic (see photos). False advertising is illegal.

Response to owner’s reply: What a silly thing to try to say. Never tried to leave without paying and you know it darling. In fact the opposite is true. I checked with my husband if he had paid after your credit card system didn’t work when we arrived and paid myself, but, since you raised this subject, i will remind you that you made me wait again another 10mins for the receipt, no explanation and no apology. This just shows your bad faith in regards to any type of negative feedback. Your pattern of response is certifiable. There is a reason you have a 3.8 rating when the place you are in is really beautiful. Just take a moment and think, it will be worth it in...

Disappointing Family Experience at Beach Calla San Giovanni

First impressions of this place were okay, but as a family of four, we were really disappointed. Sunbeds are €70 per pair with an umbrella, and no towel is included. There's also a booking fee of nearly €5. The place is much larger than I initially expected from the website, and it’s pretty enough.

We ordered drinks via the QR code, but after a 30-minute wait, I had to track them down myself. I was directed to three different people, each located at different points. Eventually, I was told the drinks had just been served at our beds. The music was loud, and there was a sea Zumba session – maybe fun for some, but not what I was expecting.

There are only two female toilet cubicles for a place that likely caters to at least 250-300 people. The service in the beach restaurant was less than adequate. Our daughters ordered pasta with tomatoes and Parmesan, which turned out to be just that: some cut-up tomatoes and grated cheese on al dente pasta. It looked unappetizing and tasted bland. Fifteen minutes after their food arrived, our pizza and pre-made salad were delivered. My chicken salad should be called "desert chicken" because it was so dry, with wilted lettuce. The pizza, to be fair, tasted better than it looked.

For nearly €250 for a day out, I wouldn't bother unless you want to wait ages for bad service and poor quality in a packed, loud beach...

I’ll try to be constructive as I see the admin is always replying not accepting any type of suggestions. We love going to private beaches but this one should learn from the others that keep the minimum quality of services.

Weak points to improve: Note that if the beach is not crowded enough they’ll close the restaurant so don’t plan to have lunch there. If you don’t have a seasonal pass (we did until this last year) always ask to have a proper siting as otherwise you won’t have any sight of the sea. Also, although the staff mainly had quite an unprofessional behaviour, we are pretty sure that they are really willing to improve and thus they’ll respect this review to achieve the minimum requirements to be called a private beach.

Strong points: we didn’t see any phone stealing, which seems to be an improvement from previous comments here. I’m not saying that other times some phones/personal belonging can be stolen. Also, we didn’t see any staff cleaning so we can’t assure they do the cleaning in a wrong way (whenever they show up we’ll know, in the meantime it will remain quite dirty).

Thanks for your time and really look for...