Cefalù Sea Palace — Hotel in Cefalù

I have decided to write a lengthy review as when researching Cefalu I initially discounted this hotel based on a few in my opinion misleading reviews.||||Firstly I will say this hotel is excellent and vastly exceeded my expectations.||||Location. Just about perfect beach front about a pleasant 10 minute stroll along the seafront promenade to Cefalu Old Town. ||||Room. We booked a standard room as part of a package and were allocated a 2nd floor room overlooking the pool and beyond that a wide expanse of sea. To the right we could see the Rocca. It got morning sun and benefited from the beauful sky over the sea at sunset. I think the rooms on west side of the hotel would get evening sun but a lesser view.||||The room was large, large double bed , desk, sofa small chair and table.and 2 additional chairs and table on balcony. It was very clean and looked in immaculate condition. Little bedside control panel for adjusting lighting. Bathroom again immaculate with tasteful stone tiles and marble sink unit.||||Pool. We mostly visited the beach but the pool area was lovely. Never an issue getting a lounger. A mixture of loungers, sofas and double day beds.||||Beach. Our favorite, Cefalu is rightly a very popular resort and the the beautiful sandy beach gets busy. Fortunately, the hotel has its own Lido complimentary towels and loungers. Again never an issue getting one. It also had showers, changing rooms, toilets and a bar/ restaurant on the beach. The sea on occasion gets a swell and even surfers so a little care is required getting in and out at times. ||||Food. Ideal for us a broad selection of fresh fruit, yogurts, granola, overnight oats, fruit juices, salads some amazing gorgolzola and ricotta, eggs cooked to order, coffee bar, pasties and a daily selection of cakes from pastry chef at their sister hotel which has a on-site patisserie. ||||Gym. Excellent small crossfit style gym. With a fitness rack enabling g pull ups, dips, squats bench press etc and land mine sockets. 2 olympic bars and enough bumper plates to get to 130kg. Hex dumbells upto 22.5 kg. Incline bench.||||CV. Treadmill, assault bike, concept 2 clones of a ski erg and rower.||||We used it most days and always had it to ourselves. If I had to be picky a couple of gym mats and a few more dumbells up to 30kg would be nice.||||Addressing some of the issues it appears other reviewers.||||1. It's not 5 star, no bell hops etc etc. Really unfair as we know star rating is based on amenities. We paid £1800 mid July for 11 nights , flights and transfers B and B. At this price point, the hotel is outstanding in what it provides. For comparison Le Callette also in Cefalu is a Very luxurious 5 star hotel, we visited it and it indeed looked amazing , it would have been £10,000 for our stay, and to my mnd a worse location.||||2. Food not great, well we didn't have HB , but I think you would be insane to go HB or FB given the wealth of fabulous restaurants in the Old Town with amazing sea terraces and old courtyards. Breakfast however was great provided you except a full English is an anathema to Italians.||||3. Tired and dated interiors, well style is personal but our room was immaculate and I think the style suited the modernist design of the hotel, lots of glass and marble.||||4. Food policy, this is true and printed on the room guide. However Sicily is hot and we got through around 4 litres of bottled water a day, this was in our room and not an issue. Equally I'm sure if you wanted a cold beer on your balcony in there was nothing to stop you buying a couple from a fantastic supermarket just behind the hotel and doing just that. What you can't do is empty the mini fridge and fill it yourself or at least not until your room has been serviced.||||5. Gym, really i can't understand any complaints here. ||||In short a really stylish, and well appointed hotel in the a...

I recently had the most horrendous experience at this hotel, and I must warn you to stay far away from this place. It claims to be a 4 or 5-star establishment, but let me tell you, it was nothing short of a nightmare.

Let's start with the parking situation. Our car was locked inside the hotel garage, and we were trapped because other vehicles were parked recklessly all over the place. We couldn't even move our rental car without damaging it. The front desk staff had zero control over assigning parking spots to occupied rooms, which is not only a huge safety issue but also a complete joke for a supposedly prestigious hotel. Anyone could have entered the garage and wreaked havoc. As a result, my girlfriend and I missed our early morning flight and had to pay extra for the rental car and book a new flight to Rome. When we approached the hotel management, their solutions were absolutely absurd. They wanted me to hand over my car keys to a staff member so that he could miraculously get us out without causing any damage. Yeah, right! As if I would trust them with my rental car. Their second suggestion was even worse – they tried to ram another customer's luxury vehicle (a Range Rover, no less) to create space for me to leave. Are you kidding me? This hotel management was perfectly fine with destroying someone else's property just to solve their parking mess. And if that wasn't enough, their third solution was for me to get a ride with a hotel employee while they returned the rental car. Seriously, how am I supposed to trust a hotel staff with my vehicle when they can't even manage their own parking lot and have no qualms about damaging customers' luxury cars? It was an absolute nightmare.

Now let's talk about the actual room we paid a whopping 500 euros for – a luxury suite, or so they claimed. The air conditioning didn't work, and their solution was to give us a puny portable unit that barely cooled the room. The sound system was completely non-functional, and we were given just one measly blanket. The in-room jacuzzi was a disaster as well. It had tape on it to mark what was hot or cold, as if it was a home renovation project gone wrong. The poor thing barely even functioned properly. And to top it all off, a disgusting stench was emanating from the bathroom. When I brought this to the attention of the manager on duty, she showed no interest in even viewing the room. It was as if she knew exactly what she was in for but decided to sell it to us anyway. I should have realized something was off when the front desk management mentioned they usually charge 650 euros for the room but gave it to me for 500 euros. Probably because they knew it was a disaster waiting to happen.

In total, we ended up spending an additional 576 euros just to get to Rome due to the incompetence of the hotel staff and management. They offered nothing to make up for their mistakes, except for idiotic solutions that made me question the staff's level of intelligence. When I asked for a refund, I was simply told to write an email and that the so-called "property manager" would get in touch with me. It was laughable because the property manager himself was the one directing his staff to destroy the Range Rover and yelling at us for not giving him our car keys. This entire experience was an absolute nightmare. This is nowhere near a 5-star hotel. Their sister property, Victoria, may be slightly nicer, but it suffers from the same lack of management and control issues. I urge you, please beware before parting with your hard-earned money for this deception of a hotel. As for me, I will be disputing all the charges with Amex, and I sincerely hope they can rectify this situation because this management is solely concerned with deceiving their customers and making money at the expense of their guests' well-being. Avoid this place...

We stayed in the “5 star” sea palace for 4 nights. We were both very much looking forward to our 5 star stay at the end of a 2 week visit to Sicily having previously stayed in 3* and 4* accommodation in Taormina and Agrigento.||Sadly, we were very disappointed with the overall experience at the Cefalu Sea Palace. We were expecting this to be the best stay of our holiday but in fact it was the worst. Overall, the quality of the stay was not luxurious and the facilities did not meet the 5 star threshold requirements. If we hadn't paid so much per night then I wouldn't have been so angry. If we had paid £100 per night and the Sea Palace was a 3* with these amenities then I would have been satisfied. We were so disappointed that we contacted booking.com (who we booked through) on the second day of our stay to raise our concerns (summarised below). They advised that they spoke to you but didn't receive a satisfactory response.||- Prior to visiting Cefalu, we stayed in 3 and 4 star hotels in both Sicily and Barcelona. The Cefalu Sea Palace falls short for service, quality and inclusions for the price per night|- No tea and coffee facilities in the room, a standard across most 3 star hotels |- No dressing gown / slippers which I would expect for a 4 star, especially with spa facilities|- The pool had a large amount of insects (i.e. ants) on the ground next to the loungers which we hadn't experienced in either of the previous two hotels we stayed in Sicily|- Spa facilities were not included in room price and were an extra €30 per person. Most 4* would include this in the room price|- €3 charge to get a fresh beach/pool towel |- Severely understaffed (the only receptionist had to help with bags)|- At breakfast, due to the shortage of staff, the tables were often not clean, had previous guest breakfast items on them and were not set. Most mornings we had to set our own table|- The staff were often quite rude and blunt when asked a question. When we arrived we weren't told were the car park was until we asked and were given a very confusing explanation. Not what you would expect of somewhere that advertised valet parking!|- Advertised valet parking wasn’t provided |- Advertised snorkeling equipment was not available|- Breakfast was poor quality, limited hot food, limited fresh fruit, no fresh juice, not greeted for breakfast and had to guess where things were and how to obtain hot food, on par with a 3* premier inn. Coffee was disgusting, disappointing for Italy. |- Room is basic, in particular only one pillow each and one spare pillow in cupboard, just a thin sheet on the bed as a cover |- The safe was not working, took until day 3 to be reset|- Extensive minibar menu however only 2 cans of soft drink and 2 beers inside |- Overly draconian rules about not bringing own food and drink into room, even water |- Not allowed to use fridge for personal use, this is more expected in a budget hotel||I appreciate that a star rating is based on facilities provided and this hotel has a big pool, gym and free beach area. However, basic amenities are missing that would be included in 3 or 4 star hotel. At £220 a night, we were expecting much more.||When we contacted the hotel directly to complain they responded defensively and in a patronising way, saying that I had “sunny smile” on my face when greeting staff. I am not the kind of person to take out frustrations on staff so my politeness should not negate my negative feelings about the sea palace. The issues I had were fundamental staffing and management issues that would not be fixed by a quick chat at reception.||I have heard good things about the Victoria palace which is under the same ownership. Perhaps the sea palace just needs an upgrade and more staff to fix these issues. And perhaps reevaluate the guest experience rather than trying to...