Locanda San Martino Thermae — Hotel in Matera

Booked here for one night in Matera as we’d heard great things about the hotel and that it is a unique experience. There is a lot about it that is very charming but a lot that really disappointed.||We knew our room was away from the main building and that any moving around Matera has its challenges with up and down steps, rough ground and confusing laneways. We had prepared for that and left most luggage in the car in the parking garage outside of the Sassi bringing in only a ‘carry on’ style case. We were told on booking that our room was about 300 metres from main hotel – well it was a great deal more than that from the hotel reception. ||We arrived about midday and knew our room would not be ready. We booked the spa for 5pm that day with the receptionist, went for a walk and returned about 4pm to pick up our bag (different receptionist). We were brought by minibus to our room. It was quite confusing as the driver went out into the modern city and then back to the Sassi. On leaving the minibus he raced ahead of us down steps, up steps and along a path and pointed in the general direction of our room. I asked how to get back to the hotel reception and he just pointed downwards and ran off. We had a private gated terrace with a great view of Matera and good table and chairs. Great cave room and cave shower room. Really unique. We got our swimwear and headed back to the hotel reception for the spa. It took a long time and we got lost so we were a bit stressed about the time. When we found the reception the receptionist was very busy with a large tour group that she was assigning rooms to so we headed down to the basement spa. We couldn't find anyone down there. Eventually we asked a couple in the pool and they told us we needed to check in with the hotel reception and they would provide us with robes and keys for lockers. Why had the original receptionist we’d booked with not told us this? The basement swimming pool is amazing. Probably the most expensive swim ever but I did love it. I’m not a sauna fan but others told me they liked it. ||I wanted to get a glass of wine to have on our terrace (there was none in the minibar) so asked about that. I was told there was no room service and I’d have to wait for someone to come to the bar to get me one to bring myself. I ended up waiting over 20 minutes as the poor bar man was bringing bags to rooms. We asked the receptionist about the route back to our room and got “just go to second floor and the wooden gate” with an expression of amazement at our stupidity. “What second floor and wooden gate, we have no idea what you're talking about”. Just to be clear this was the same woman who had sent us off to our room in the minibus and she’d never told us. This kind of “it’s easy” attitude was actually really annoying. It might be easy if you live in Matera but it’s not at all easy if you are a visitor and their job is to look after visitors. ||The second floor and wooden gate did make the journey back marginally easier and you can imagine the laughs I caused carrying my glass of (speedily warming) wine with me through the streets. We’d booked a restaurant near the cathedral so we had to make our way back down again for dinner. On our way back in the dark we were unsure again which route to take (Google maps is useless in Matera btw) so I suggested we just get to the hotel and ask for someone to bring us back. The man on reception told us he was alone so could not accompany us but he did at least try to help us. He started off with “It’s easy” and then proceeded to a very complicated list of instructions. An American guest in the reception area was shaking with laughter listening to what followed “It's easy”. ||We eventually got to our room but unfortunately not to a good night’s sleep – the worst mattress I’ve ever experienced in Italy. Unacceptable but especially unacceptable at this price point. ||In the morning we went down for breakfast which was poor. Very poor selection generally and the only fruit was a couple of dried up apricots rolling around in a bowl. Coffee was cold and getting it replaced with hot coffee was not easy. ||We went to reception to let them know we were going for a walk but that our bag was left packed for them to pick up for us so that they could get on with cleaning the room. The receptionist (fourth we met and third lady) told us that staff were not allowed to go to our room on their own and that we would have to go back up to the room and wait for someone to arrive to collect our bag. Such total nonsense and clearly just trying to get out of doing it. Any security concerns were undermined by the fact that they’d left our bag floating around their reception and not locked away for hours the previous day. I explained politely that we were not undertaking the arduous uphill walk again in the hot sun and that they would have to sort out a solution. She grudgingly agreed to us coming back after our wander and the minibus driver taking us to our room en route to the parking garage. When we came back she sent us up the road to where the minibus was parked. We waited quite a long time and eventually the barman from the previous day showed up to drive us. He’d been waiting for us at the front door of the hotel on the instruction of reception. He was honestly the best member of staff we met and seems to have an innate understanding of hospitality. The rest could do with a bit of training from him. ||Go to Matera as it’s fabulous but maybe...

First of all, don’t get me wrong : it is a nice hotel. Price for money is insanely good. But actually with a service a little more guest-friendly , the whole hotel could be even better. Let me walk you through what was great and what wasn’t.

Great Location is outrageously perfect: in the very heart of Matera. Our room was nice: nice decor, nice bed, big in size, private entrance, private terrace with a view. The hotel is in fact a combination of real authentic caves - each room being a private cave. Perfect privacy, good renovation. Breakfast was just AMAZING. Italian perfection.

Not that great The biggest low is definitely the parking. Things were initially quite smooth : we were given an address for a parking near the hotel. We went there and park. The parking overcharged us with 5€ (25€ instead of 20€ for the night) which is obviously not professional - but we are tourists in South of Italy so why not. The real problem was the access to the hotel with our 30 kg luggages: 10 minutes walk in slippery stairs, a total nightmare. And the problem here aren’t the stairs, it’s that nobody actually told us about them so we didn’t organize accordingly (small backpacks for example). Second parking problem, when we check out staff actually told us our car was moved and not in the parking anymore. Nobody actually asked us about moving the car or anything. It was a total surprise. We had to take a transfer from the hotel to the new parking location. Transfer was a group thing and absolutely uncomfortable so definitely not a nice additional touch to the whole parking experience. A little disappointment in our room: our shower was actually very small (my 18 sq m student apartment one was bigger fyi) even if the room was actually super big (30 sq m at least). We did go for the spa experience. High expectations there since it wasn’t included in the room price (20€ per person). Well the cave pool did deliver: very big, very nicely done. The rest of it wasn’t that nice. The whole experience is about traditional roman therme (different temperatures rooms and pools). It’s actually not really that because in traditional therme you would have several pools at different temperatures. There was only one pool and then rooms where the air was at different temperatures. In addition, we didn’t go for the hammam since the smell was awful (hot mold...). Sauna was okay but small and with nothing special - didn't seem so logical in the whole therme thing though. For our check-in, we had one member of the staff that clearly was under-trained. We told him we payed the hotel in advance by wire transfer three times (we were asked by email to do so). Checking out the next day, the staff recharged our credit card. The morning team hasn’t been told about the wire transfer (communication issue). Their reaction though was super professional so not a big deal (immediate card...

I've had my fair share of hotel experiences, but my recent stay in Matera was notably inexcusably disappointing. I booked the Junior Family Suite seeking a touch of luxury, but the reality was a stark contrast.

Upon arrival, all we asked for was baggage storage, we arrived at the parking at 10:18AM and got to the hotel at 10:37, not asking to check in, just for storage of heavy bags

We were told to come back in an hour and a room would be ready. Oh what a mess. We lost at least 2 hours on room issues. We were led to Room 84, which was a far cry from the 'suite' I images advertised. After voicing our concerns, we were moved to Room 7 – still not the suite we had paid for. The hotel staff's response was a chaotic mix of confusion and inefficiency, contributing to an exasperating game of musical rooms.(see the images we are telling the truth it was a game and the hotel people came out of it with our money and Mileage plus and HotelsDotCom will do nothing to help, becuase the Hotel claims they have no recollection of us escalating an issue.. tell me then, how do we have passage to 2 different rooms? or did we make that up too? )

What aggravated the situation further was the impact on our plans. Due to the room shuffling, our day's schedule, including a spa visit, was heavily disrupted, forcing us to attend much later than intended. This not only caused inconvenience but also ate into our valuable touring time in Matera.

The photos showcase the different room numbers we were shuffled between, the different plaquards alone tell the tale, starkly contradicting the hotel's denial of our complaints. This ordeal was a clear example of poor service and a disregard for customer satisfaction.

We can also add, that once we parked in the garage as directed, the Shuttle was UNABLE To pick us up so we had to walk there, and we were NOT offered the shuttle to take us back on checkout day. Carrying luggage on our backs up cobblestone steps, hundreds at a time was not what we would have preferred.

The disparity between what is promised and what is delivered was significant.

NO luxury exists here it merits far less stars than...