Hotel Cinque Terre — Hotel in Monterosso al Mare

I strongly advise against this place. Their offer says they have their own parking, but when you arrive, they want you to hand over your car keys. The keys are kept out in the open, with no supervision. The owners on-site assure you that the parking belongs to them, is safe, fenced, locked, and that only their staff parks the cars. On the day of check-out, I discovered that my car had been damaged—someone had driven into it. I received no explanation, they didn’t even try to investigate what had happened. The staff hid from me, and the owners brazenly told me they won’t identify the person responsible because they “don’t know who parks there,” the parking “doesn’t belong to them,” and they “won’t cover the damage” because the parking is not insured.

It’s shocking that on the day of check-in they assure you everything is safe, watched over by them, and that only their employee moves the cars—and when a problem arises, they deny all responsibility. Think about it: they keep the keys completely unsecured, try to convince you that nothing will happen, and if your car gets stolen or damaged, they’ll deny everything—just like they did in my case.

The hotel itself feels like it’s stuck in the 90s, with plastic furniture and fake fruit everywhere. In front of the hotel, there’s a large area filled with plastic furniture in direct sunlight, where no one wants to sit. There’s no air conditioning in the dining area—windows are opened in the morning, and eating breakfast in such heat and stuffiness is very unpleasant. The breakfast is not worth the price: you get cheese-like products, one type of cold cut, overboiled hard eggs, store-bought croissants, and bread. The coffee is terrible.

The hotel staff are unfriendly. From as early as 7 AM, they gather in the hallway for loud chats, and they enter your room unexpectedly—even before you’ve left for breakfast. After their “cleaning,” it’s hard to tell if they’ve done anything at all. The water in the bathroom is not warm—usually lukewarm, and in the afternoon, cold. They only speak Italian and don’t care if you don’t understand. Throughout your stay, you feel like you are there for their hotel, not the other way around.

That’s why I sincerely do not recommend this place. I’ve never experienced anything like this at any hotel before. The most shocking part is how the owners looked me straight in the eye, guaranteeing everything was safe and monitored, and then, after my car was damaged, tried to hide it and refused to take any responsibility, claiming they didn’t know what goes on in their own parking area.

I’m very upset—I drove 1800 km to get there with a new car, and not only did their employee most likely damage it, but they didn’t even attempt to help me—not even a simple apology. Don’t be fooled by the hotel’s location. There are many other places nearby on Google Maps, and I deeply regret not choosing a...

We had a horrific experience at this hotel. I would NOT recommend staying at this dump unless you truly want to spoil your holiday. After 2 weeks in Rome, Positano, Florence, Tuscany and Venice at amazing accommodation, we had the grave misfortune of arriving at Cinque Terre Hotel. 1. We entered our room to find air conditioning control on wall broken with relevant buttons pushed in so far that they were not accessible. 2. The air conditioner did not work and we were in Italy during a heat wave. When I informed them the first time about the broken air conditioner, an irritated man came to our room and attached a primitive long pipe from air conditioner to a huge plastic bottle so excess water could run down into bottle dripping at the head of my bed. 3. The plugs did not fit any of our adaptors that we used successfully all over Italy. 4. The same man informed us not to use all lights at once or we’d overload the electrical system and it would blow!!!! 5. Was also told by younger man who initially opened the room, that we should be careful with blinds as they are 70 years old!!!! (He was serious!). 6. When lay on one of single beds, noted that my body slopes to one side and was extremely uncomfortable. On lifting mattress to try find out why sloping, found thin wooden plank under bed to try compensate for the sagging springs!!!!! 7. When the air conditioner stopped working AGAIN, I got dressed at 11.45pm and went downstairs again to report it. Owners were irritated with me and cross with me and kicked us out of hotel at 11.50pm. I had to walk streets at midnight to try and find alternate accommodation !!! I have photos of the disgusting 1970’s room off anyone requires further verification. The owners were unpleasant, unhelpful and cross with us when their room was inferior and things didn’t work, especially in a heatwave. In one fabulous two week holiday, this was truly the WORST accommodation, worst treatment and if I can prevent just one other traveler enduring my pain and disappointment......... DO NOT BOOK AT HOTEL CINQUE TERRE. It was beyond awful in every respect. Contact me on FB for photos of you require further proof. An Italian pharmacist in foyer, a local, witnessed the confrontation and was upset by it. I invited her to come upstairs and view my room before she passed any personal judgment on annoying tourists! She came upstairs and was horrified. In her broken Italian and us using Google translate, she asked for a piece of paper and immediately wrote down name of an alternative...

Almost everything is fine.

We would give this hotel higher star ranking if the hotel managers have a more understanding and sharing attitude with regard to our situation: we had to leave earlier than scheduled due to the bad luck that there would be a national train strike across Italy on the day we planned to check out (with train station staff telling us “no guaranteed trains on that day”). For this strike, we had to travel by train a day earlier than our plan, out of our expectation.

We called the hotel to inform 5 days in advance of the checkout day that we would have to cancel our one last day and whether they can support us with refund or any cost sharing.

The hotel receptionist told us to email our hotel booking agency. The agency contacted the hotel managers immediately after our cancel request, but there was no official written response from them.

Even though we told the receptionist guy upon our first day arrival that we had to cancel our last day due to bad train situation and asked for refund if any and if possible as an understanding and sharing spirit from the hotel, they were all silent until we checked with the receptionist again about their answer. Only then, the guy told us that “sorry you prepaid and it is not possible”. The hotel manager only waived a few euros of city tax for us upon checkout without any further cost sharing in terms of refund for our bad-luck early check-out.

We understand that there was opportunity cost and it was not compulsory for them to refund or to share any cost with us. However it was near mid-June and tourists were very crowded anywhere, meaning it was not difficult to have the cancelled day to be booked again by others.

Empathy is worth much more than money, and would give the hotel long lasting benefits, we just want to let the hotel managers know that. With understanding and sharing spirit, the hotel would have received our completely happy review and much more guests from our relationship network.

For now, after this experience, we would not like to recommend this hotel to any of our friends...