Borgo Egnazia — Hotel in Fasano

I would like to start this review by saying Borgo Egnazia was the worst travel experience we have ever had in Italy, or anywhere else in the world. And we have travelled to high end resorts in over 20 countries.||||Bullet points here:||- Visit was in September 2023; we booked a 7 night stay in a three bedroom villa "Casa Stupenda"||- My wife and I were on a family trip with our baby (5 months), sister and a friend ||- Despite emailing the hotel twice to confirm our airport pick up, which they also confirmed twice, they did not show to pick us up. When we called the hotel they said that there had been a problem in the morning with the car. We had arrived in the afternoon and no one had told us this from the hotel, and they had not arranged another transfer. So we had to wait 45 minutes with a 5 month old infant, after flying from New York. ||- The service at the hotel bar - and everywhere - was terrible; unless you spoke Italian which we found out when a friend of ours visited us, the staff were dismissive and took 30 minutes minimum to make a cocktail. When we followed up on our order, they said we had to wait. Nothing else. Noting the hotel was not at full capacity.||- Every night when we ordered reserve wine, until we stopped going to the hotel restaurants as service was so poor, no one seemed to know how to open a bottle and we waited around 30-40 minutes for this to happen. ||- The three Michelin star meal was 3.5 hours long - by the time real food came out you were so hungry and tired and also tipsy from cocktails as you'd had no food, that we don't remember any dish except the bread. ||- When we went to the children's pool with our daughter for a change from the villa, the staff told me that if we wanted to order anything we had to walk up to the main bar that was far away where they were standing doing nothing. I've never had pool service at a five star hotel where guests had to find staff to order - especially after tipping them 100 Euros to make sure we were looked after. We were not. ||- On multiple occasions the bar staff at the main bar in the evening asked us if we were wearing "pool clothes" in the evening, I'd just had a baby so was wearing kaftans, which I told them every night ||- The staff also told our two male friends who were visiting that their shorts were too short - they are gay men and fashionable so that was an awkward moment ||- After two days of this nonsense we decided to go into the local town to buy our own cocktail ingredients and just served ourselves at home rather than deal with the staff. I was not expecting to be serving myself at a five star resort.||- The food at the resort was mediocre at best, the second night we went to eat at La Frasca and my wife got food poisoning from Melanzane. She has never had food poisoning before. We told the hotel and they did not care or offer any medical services. We organised that ourselves. ||- Room service took forever and the order was never right. Water was ordered and never came. The plastic cups we requested ourselves to have by the pool were taken away every day, even though we asked them to keep them in the villa so we didn't have glass by our pool. And didn't have to ask - and wait - for an hour every day. ||- We stopped eating in the hotel after the food poisoning incident and ate all our meals - except breakfast - externally to the hotel. ||- When it was recommended that we speak to the hotel manager about our experience she proceeded to give us her bio of where she had worked before as if we didn't know what she was talking about. Belmond Hotels - of which we have stayed at many times - and Aman hotels - the same. It was strange to be patronized by a hotel manager who asked to listen to our grievances. When we spoke with her we specifically told her we did not want any remedies, but to offer her our experience and let her know we would not recommend anyone we know to visit this hotel. After realising that we had stayed at other "good" hotels, she gave various excuses about staffing and Covid - it was 2023 - and said that hotel guests rarely complained and had a great time. Hilarious given our experience. ||- She asked us if there was anything we could do, we asked if she could arrange for a poolside bed for our nanny to enjoy her day off. She said absolutely. When our nanny went there an hour later she was told that the pool was fully booked and nothing had been arranged. So I then had to go and find the manager again and asked her what happened. She said the lifeguard was confused and hadn't listened to her properly. I didn't understand how something so simple could be hard to understand. ||- The only two positive aspects of the trip was our lovely housekeeper Eugenia who made us a beautiful breakfast every morning, and a lady called Camilla who was sent to us when we arrived because of how unhappy we were about not being picked up despite confirming twice. ||- The weirdest trip we've ever had unless you enjoy waiting 45-60 minutes for everything at a five star hotel, and feeling like you're at a self...

If you stay here, make sure you check If there are any "corporate events" going on during your stay.

Booked the hotel through FHR (Fine Hotels Resorts) Generally all their properties are pretty well screened and are generally good places to stay. Arrived on a Sunday to the train station, called for a transfer, they showed up promptly. After arriving to the hotel, we were promptly shoveled without explanation to what who or where we were going. We were met by a nice lady who showed us to our room. Maybe because it was an evening check in and we had a 1.5 year old with us that the normal pleasantries and explanations of the property were left out. However we walked to the room, and were shown inside. We asked for a crib, which about 15 minutes later, 3 lovely ladies came and set it up for our son.

Next morning, breakfast, the ladies working the breakfast were very kind and thoughtful. The maitre'd or whoever was taking roll call, was a little disorganized as throughout the entire stay. Lunch - at the pool, probably some of the most uncaring and "nonchalant " staff encountered. The menu was pretty horrible. This is Italy, there very basic sandwiches and poor salads. I would rather have eaten the children's menu and paid for it! (BTW nobody told us the kids ate for free)

Dinner - Went to the Trattoria, also very disappointing. Poor flavors, service was just alright and the choice was also very low. I understand they want to highlight Pugliese food, but there is more to Puglia than Tripe.

Next day we spent at the pool and used the Spa. I enjoyed the Spa with the different areas very much, thought it was a good environment, but can we have some water around? You know if you spend 30 minutes in the sauna you are thirsty! There was some tea but you had to go find it! Dinner - the best part of our trip.. Ate at a local spot in a local village. If only the food was this good at the Borgo. We took a free shuttle to the beach, then walked to town. That meal was probably one of the best meals I've had in a long time and it wasn't that expensive. The wine was amazing, the seafood.

After coming back to the Borgo, is where things started to go downhill. There was a private event taking place in the open air square, which is surrounded by other residential apartments. At 9pm, in our room, the sound from the band and speakers was so loud, that our eardrums were thumping with the low end. You don't expect this at a 5 star resort, sure If I'm trying to go clubbing in Ibiza, however this a family friendly resort, hence whats the problem? I call to the front desk, they don't really apologize but rather say there is nothing they can do, there is a private party going on until 11pm and it was still early. Sure it's Italy, 9:15pm was nothing, but I didn't pay money to be in this situation. So I tell them, they have to turn it down. Nothing happens, I walk down to the reception, (It took about 5 minutes walk each way) I ask for the manager, whoever it was, some lady came out and said there is nothing they can do. I'm a musician so I told them, to turn the subs off as the low end bounces around. Did they? No. It's 9:45pm I call back, they tell me the manager is at the space and is trying to do something about it. I call back again, and they say that they will end at 10:30pm. Thankfully it did.

So the main thing that upset me, was the fact that nobody warned the guests about this. Do they care? Probably not because its a corporate event and they make good money from it. So who cares when one guest complains. The other part was the total nonchalant attitude by management. The manager came by the next day close to the end of his shift around 4:30pm and said " I heard you wanted to speak to me" Really?. You are supposed to be apologizing, but did he? Nope....

And btw, at breakfast? Who was catering to the corporate group? The entire staff. I had to wait 20 minutes to get a coffee...

Very beautiful place, organised with care and an eye for top level service. A few things resonated less well with me, though, probably because this is the kind of place where one expects perfection and anything off is immediately visible.

The rooms are big and cozy, but we missed something to prepare coffee or tea (we stayed for a week, and we didn't feel like spending 6€ for room service every time).

The "basic" WiFi is pretty bad, and the premium service (100€/w although in my case that was waived) is still not great (12 mbps at the best of times, which went down to 2mbps on a rainy day making it difficult to have video conferences), and connection is spotty (really bad on the beach and the swimming pool, bad on the balcony of the room, making it hard for people who try to work from beautiful places: I had to resign myself to staying in the room).

The various restaurants are good to great, but all ludicrously overpriced: I know this is a place for people who don't have money problems, but I still like to get value for my money and 25€ for a (good) pizza is not it. A (really nice-looking) open air dinner organised in the central square of the resort as a fake country "sagra" with fixed menu costs 90€/person for regular guests (but we would have avoided it anyway due to the density of seats in a period of intense covid spread).

Also frustrating that when you're "in the pizzeria" you cannot get a dish from the restaurant that serves tables in the same place as "we keep separate outlets". Some of the restaurants also try so hard at being "warm and authentic" that they reach the uncanny valley. In the end, we chose "La Calce" as the one who offered the best quality and value without exceeding too much in looking like a country restaurant and had a few very satisfying meals there.

Bikes are for rent (for a small fee for a basic bike, admittedly) and need to be returned by 6pm. The sauna was not free due to the need to sanitise it for COVID and it turns out that the "additional fee" to be able to use it was 100€/day (as it was only possible with a basic spa package). The "heated" swimming pool was just not freezing cold. Most of the swimming pools were empty all the time due to the season (we visited in October) so I could swim freely (other than in the indoor one were I was told that swimming butterfly is not allowed because it risked splashing water on a side where there was no one), but I suspect in the high season there are no attempts to segregate lanes for swimmers.

Other things were great, obviously: the beach is nice (although with views over some horrendous seaside hotels in the nearby Savelletri), the golf court next to the sea looks wonderful (I can't comment on its quality, though), the general vibe in the resort was quiet and relaxing (although it was a low season week), breakfast is great, service is generally pretty good (with the occasional grumpy waiter/waitress in the army of people working there) and the architecture of the place is inspiring.

Overall it was a relaxing week, but I'm not entirely convinced I would feel that the price this place commands in high season would make it a worthy...