Hotel Gabbiano Azzurro — Hotel in Marciana Marina

My wife and I, and our two friends stayed here for a week whilst on a Travelsphere escorted tour very recently. Elba is a beautiful island and Marciana Marina is quite a special town with a lovely harbour, beach, and a number of restaurants and bars along the sea front and in the lovely town square. The hotel is in a good location, a short walk from the town centre and the seafront promenade. ||The hotel has small well kept gardens with a nice pool area and an ample supply of sun lounges and outside tables/chairs. ||Our room was clean and well maintained throughout our stay, but it was very small – not somewhere you could spend any time in should you wish to. Certainly not enough storage space for two people and hence I was living out of my suitcase at times. Likewise the bathroom was small but serviceable. However there were no shelves in the bathroom and strangely the sink had sloping sides so toothbrush, toothpaste and any other items you usually kept by the sink would regularly slide or fall into the sink or onto the floor. It would appear that some of our fellow travellers had balconies and I’m not sure if these were upgrade rooms or we were simply unlucky. We were not aware that there was an option for upgrading when we booked the tour.||There is free wifi at the hotel but don’t count on it. Pretty ineffective most of the time (although do you need it if you’re on holiday?). If you do mange to get it its very slow. ||There’s plenty of breakfast, but it’s the same every day. Could have done with a little variation – even an egg or two and some toast would have been welcome.||On the plus side the staff are really nice and try hard to please.||Be warned – there is no card payment at the hotel. Any bill you run up needs to be...

We have just returned from a Travelsphere week long tour of this beautiful island staying at the Gabbiano Azzurro. This is a lovely small family run b & b hotel situated a few minutes walk from the waterfront. We had a balcony room facing towards the sea and this was kept immaculately clean - freshly changed bed linen and towels on a daily basis. ||With a few small tweaks this hotel could be perfect:-||1.Breakfast is continental buffet style (plenty of choice of cereal, juice, fruit, cheese, ham, croissants, bread etc) with staff serving you tea or coffee; but the service was very poor - sometimes you had finished your breakfast before the staff decided to ask you what you would like to drink; often they were nowhere to be seen or would always serve visiting Italians before the English.||2. The afternoon bar service was at times very slow - we once had to wait 30 minutes for our order of drinks to arrive. The evening bar service however was very good and at very reasonable prices.||3. Unfortunately, we had a problem with our air conditioning unit (after a couple of days when it worked OK, water then began to pour out of the unit onto the bed - we reported this but it took 3 days to repair), ||Other than these few negatives, the hotel is a lovely restful place to spend a week or two exploring the island. ||Dara, the tour manager for Travelsphere also lives on the island and is very knowledgeable and is always there for advice...

My wife and I stayed here through Travelsphere, the first week of September. It was a perfect week,staying in a lovely hotel, yes the room was a little small but very comfy and always spotless, with a regular sheets and towels changed. it was worth upgrading to a balcony. Breakfasts could not be faulted, and all credit to the staff who made sure our early morning tours the breakfasts were of the same high standard.The hotel gardens were lovely and the pool was an extra bonus. The hotel was in a very good position to access the resort,which itself was a little gem.Beware, the swimming areas are very small, and mainly pebbled, and will get crowded in high season,and the marina does take a lot of the bay.||Other tips, if with T/sphere, your rep is a little gem, full of useful info.If deciding to go on the glass bottom boat trip,don't if it's crowded, as it's a real bun fight to see anything!! Best little eatery is the Bar Florida, right by the Rendezbous restaurant on the front. Best steak go to Borgo Cotone, at the foot of the old town. Best fish and super cheerful service is La Scaletta,on the road down to the front from the hotel. There seems to be only one sailing all day trip with lunch, which was fully booked up to the second week of Sept. So if you fancy that, get in touch through T/sphere and book ahead through Dara the rep for your trip.Finally if you want fast food joints, hooray henry's,loud disco/nightclubs...