Hotel Giardino sul Mare — Hotel in Lipari

We enjoyed the hotel. It is beautifully situated, elevated on a rock. The location is perfect. Restaurants and stores within 5 minutes walking distance. The saltwater pool with sea view is perfect. Sea access via steps available. The rooms are a little dated. We still felt very comfortable because they were very clean and well maintained. The breakfast is good, could be more lavish/lovely, the breakfast staff is courteous and makes great coffee. The bar is beautiful with vintage charm & roof terrace - the barista is super nice.

Which unfortunately (!) spoiled our stay afterwards; and this is to be understood as a clear recommendation to the crew: According to Booking.com, we booked with a check-out time of 10am-12pm; this can be seen in the booking confirmation. We had the 'no cleaning' sign on the door and the room door double locked. At 10:45 we came back from the last pool walk to shower and clear the room. The door was closed, but no longer double-locked: in other words, room service had already been in the room. At 11:10 the room service knocked to tell us with hands and feet that the room had not yet been vacated. Language barriers made communication difficult. At 11:20 the phone rang and reception told us we had to vacate the room in 10 minutes. Although we told them that we could actually check out by 12 noon. They didn't want to listen, we were cut off and hung up. At 11:23 another member of reception staff called us to tell us to vacate the room immediately. We weren't ready yet and assumed it was 12 o'clock, they didn't want to listen, we were cut off and hung up. At 11:25 we went to reception in person, pointed out the booking confirmation and presented it. Then the information about check-out by 12 noon arrived.

In short: we do not rule out the possibility that there was a misunderstanding and that there are different check-out times locally than stated in Booking. In this case, however, we were not informed. In such a case, the hotel should deal with the guests more professionally and try to resolve the misunderstanding instead of using knocking and telephone terror to force us out of the room. An apology would have made us feel better, but it didn't happen.

We hope this won't happen again.

All in all, this is only a recommendation from our side to the crew. That being said, we did enjoy our stay and will perhaps consider coming back one day when we return to...

Loved the swimming pool and the beach access (which is private access from the hotel for guests only) at this place. Just beautiful. ||Dinner was simple but tasty and we loved it. ||Breakfast buffet was included with our room booking - lots of it - mostly cold meats, cheese, yoghurt and bread/sweet croissants, along with coffees and juices. Sea views from the downstairs dining room are great!||The staff were friendly and helpful. ||My only issue would be the room. Just a tad dated - the decor is looking a little tired (but the room is very clean). And our room was the furtherest to the right when looking out at the sea which meant we were close to motors or generators??? We could see them from our balcony. Not sure what they were but they were ugly and noisy. I would ask for a room on the left hand side to avoid this. Fortunately the weather was warm so we had the air conditioner on so you couldn’t hear this when in the room. ||Still, these cons didn’t detract from our stay and I think the value of this hotel is overall very good. ||We would...

If you want fancy rain showers and sleek furnishings then this place will not be for you. But if you want a hotel in the best possible setting, with wonderful views, nice swimming pool and a short walk from town then this is the place. There are plenty of sitting areas, inside and out, plus a roof terrace for when the sun is going down. It's family run and you can tell. It's not slick but it's charming, relaxing.||We were there in early October and the aircon is apparently switched off at the end of September. It didn't just stop working. But you don't need it by then.||The food in the restaurant is OK, nothing very special but good value as Lipari can be .expensive. I would return here every time having seen the positions of some of the other hotels, nowhere near the sea or far away...