Eco Resort dei Siriti — Hotel in Nova Siri

We spent one week in this hotel and it is very hard to write a review because there were some aspects which were great and some which were average or even under average. Wish I could give 3,5 stars, because neither 4 nor 3 are fair. So first the good points: ||Location: the hotel is surrounded by vineyards and olive orchards, what makes it a very quite place, and there are no roads or other buildings disturbing you. Of course this means, you are far away from the village and the sea and you need a car to move around. To the sea you need good 10 min with a car, as well as to the nearest village or shop. There is a shuttle, but the service is limited to morning hours, then siesta and then afternoon, the latest is at 18.30, what I find a bit too early to close the shuttle service. ||Animation team and some of the staff: the animation team was great and professional and they are trying to move the animation job into an artistic level. And this with a success, giving the time and complexity they need to deliver. As well here and there we met exceptionally nice staff. ||Pool: gorgeous pool with great water for hot summer days, and if you stay there at noon, while all are eating, you end up there alone ||||And now negative points: ||Breakfast: probably the biggest disappointment of this hotel. Although the hotel advertised itself as fine hotel with local resources, in reality it is a mass hotel as any other, only having a luck to be built in the vineyard. So the selection was very very limited and you don’t have too many choices to eat there. Croissants, some biscuits, 2 types of simple cake, cheap yogurt (made in Germany btw.) , normal industrial marmalade, honey, powder coffee (officially the worst coffee I ever drank) , scrambled eggs, one type of salami, one type of ham and one type of cheese – food is not being protected from flies or is not being kept warm. Being so far away you don’t have any other choice just to eat there. AS well the staff is not very efficient in preparing the tables and from some strange reasons they have to wear white t-shirts, so each of them has a flack on it. Not that it is the most important but it didn’t give the best professional look. The rest of the food I cant judge as thanks God, we had only B&B type of staying. ||As well giving the distance from the town, there is not a possibility to buy a normal food outside lunch or dinner time. There is a pool bar, but that offers only ready made industrial sandwiches. ||Rooms: average. As a first room we got a room on the ground floor overlooking the parking place, so our direct view was at a car parked directly in front of the balcony. So we asked to change the room to a superior. Well the room as such was not different. Only it had a big roof terrace. Our idea of the superior room was different. The equipment was basic. However, the room was comfortable, spacious and clean. ||Terrace however wasnt clean once during our 1 week of stay. ||||||So to summarize: when you read a hotel flyer, it seems as a nice eco hotel with individual attitude to guests, using local resources and maybe this increased our expectations, however the reality is, that it is an average hotel with average services set in a great nature and with a great pool. I think there is more potential, however the management company has made the hotel as anonymous mass hotel without individual touch. || Nevertheless, we had a great holidays there, because of a daily short trips to surrounded villages, in each village you find a historical sight, great local restaurant with superb food, some music band playing. The border of Basilicata and Calabria has a lot to offer and it is definitely worth to travel there. Probably we would go again to Eco Hotel, maybe shorter stay and definitely with our own car...

Sorry to write my first negative review, but let's start with the positive things:||||1. the rooms are very spacious and clean;||2. the pool is very big and not too deep, which is ideal if you'll travel with small children;||3. the place is well maintained;||||The reason why I won't recommend this place to anyone is:||||- I have booked and paid via booking.com back in May. During check-in we needed to pay service charge ( as is mentioned on the website). The receptioniste also told us to pay for the room. We have showed her that the room was already paid for and she then talked ( in Italian, which is according to my opinion not polite, if there are non-Italian speaking customers in front of you) to her colleague, we assumed that he was the manager, and then the receptioniste confirmed that we only needed to pay the service charge. My husband gave her our credit card and needed to confirm the amount of € 50,00 with the pincode.||That manager was also next to her and in front of us holding a credit card machine and when another receptionist needed the machine for a payment he didn't reply, but he just kept standing in front of us. ||Later that day I have checked our transactions of the past days and I was very surprised that somehow they did charge us for the room at the exact same moment as we did pay for the service. We have immediately called the credit card company and they have informed us, that the hotel indeed charged the 2 amounts at the same time. ||So we went back to the reception. The woman who has checked us in, was not present, but there was a very nice girl ( her English was very good) who has helped us. We have explained what happened and she went to the same manager as the woman who had checked us in. He, again, talked to her in Italian and finally he instructed her to pay us back the amount in cash. We told him that we didn't want it in cash, but that we wanted the transaction reversed. The only thing that he said was 'sorry'. Nothing more! ||I think you can imagine that after this event we have had a very bad feeling and if we hadn't booked 3 nights, we would have left immediately.||||- There is entertainment, which is mentioned on the website, but what isn't mentioned is that is goes on until after midnight (it stops around 1 o'clock). They also mention that the rooms are soundproof, but I can assure you that this is not the case. Our children were trying to sleep on the couch, but couldn't because of all the noise.||||- The sleeping couch is of bad quality. We have 2 small children and even they could feel all the springs.||||- According to the website, breakfast is until 9.30, but the staff and already starts cleaning and removing things at 9.00. My husband has asked for cheese and salami, but he couldn't get it anymore. Also the grouping of the room is not very logical.||||- The staff hardly speaks English. Majority of the guests are Italians, but according to my opinion if you work at a international resort, you should at least know the basics so that you can, for example, proper apologize to a guest and offer them some kind of compensation for...

Initial impression is that of four stars. The personnel has been helpful and friendly so far. The location is around 5km from the beach, but the swimming pool looks good so far.

12h after I'm afraid by the end of the week there will be zero stars left. The pool was good indeed. The water wasn't very hot nor cold. I think it was rather soothing on the very high temperatures here (35oC). The problem yesterday was the microphone guy. Someone told him to talk, and he didnt stop, ever, with stupid commentary and even singing out of tune over all the songs. I don't know if the gentleman was drunk or high, which is fine honestly, as long as someone takes away the microphone.

Also the show last night included a couple of theater jokes. Maybe I am uncultured and I missed the point of all the demonstrations. I will reflect.

Breakfast was nothing spectacular, aside the normal italian-trying-to-be-international. But it was delicious. Personally I dislike the coffee dispensers. You can't get good coffee if you press a button for it. So I'm prejudiced against that. I understand in the catering business is probably the ultimate line of technology and service. Will give a go at the "navetta service to the beach".

Update: July 19, 2018

The lifeguards on the swimming pool, proved to be polite, useful and knowledgeable. On the other hand the staff of the reception was the complete opposite. I don't know what's their problem, but today twice I asked for their help and twice they've been obnoxious, rude and almost laughing at me. Maybe they should take a page from the lifeguards' book.

Update: July 20, 2018

This is absolutely NOT a four stars restaurant. Yesterday we were served old french fries. How can you fail to server decent french fries when the next McDonald's can outshine you. The food on last night's buffet was a recycling of leftovers from lunch and old patatine fritte. Today for the first time I tried the cornetti. All of them were covered in powdered sugar (which I dislike) but I tried anyway. The pastries were half cooked- the pasta inside was actually still raw. I'm quite disappointed that they can't offer a decent pastry. Additionally I refuse to believe that in a four stars restaurant I get paper towels and plastic cups and just one glass. From the dispenser coffee and soft drinks to the lack of extra glasses during any meal- the list can...