Petra Segreta Resort & Spa — Hotel in Olbia

If you are reading this considering staying at Petra Segreta, all I can say is do yourself a favour and don’t book it. It is too late for us, but it’s not too late for you!||This hotel is absolutely not 5 stars - I would say barely 3. The property is outdated and tired-looking and badly in need of renovation. The impression from the website is very misleading, and makes the hotel look far nicer than it is. ||The ‘spa’ is in an extremely poor state. It smells bad and when you look up to the ceiling of the steam room, you know why - it is covered in mould. Hardly what you want to be breathing in, in an enclosed space. The sauna door is so badly fitted with a huge gap at one side of the door that the relaxation space outside is absurdly hot since all the heat escapes.||When we arrived at the pool, there were no towels left out and although two members of staff saw us, no one brought towels or asked if we needed anything. My husband and another frustrated guest had to go in search of a member of staff to provide them. We went to the single toilet near the pool to find there was no handwash or soap - it hadn’t run out, there was just absolutely nothing provided. My husband told a member of staff about this and requested they put some soap or handwash in the bathroom but an hour later when I visited the bathroom, there was still no handwash. This is just unacceptable in a 5 star resort and you shouldn’t have to notify staff of failures like that more than once. My husband had to again complain that this was extremely unhygienic, and pretty shocking in a post-Covid era. Even after handwash was eventually provided, there were still no towels in the shack of a bathroom - you have to dry your hands on toilet paper or tissues.||The service in general is absolutely not what you would expect from a 5 star hotel or from a Relais & Chateux property. We requested some cold milk to have with tea in our room, but over half an hour later it still hadn’t arrived and my husband had to call again.||We complained about the poor service and the manager Valerio made an initial show of being grateful for our feedback, although he was somewhat defensive. When we mentioned how long it took just to get a little milk, his response was ‘oh you didn’t have it in the minibar?’ and we had to explain that the minibar contains capsules of UHT cream, not milk. In any case, hardly a justification as to why it took 40 minutes and multiple phone calls to get the milk they’d said they’d deliver. ||He offered us either a room upgrade or a free massage. The room upgrade however would not be possible until the following day, and they said they would show us the room after breakfast. Their checkout time is 11am and they said they would prioritise cleaning that room so they could show it to us as soon as possible. At will after 2pm - when they’d had 3 hours to clean the room - we were still waiting to be shown it, and having to waste our day to stay in the hotel to see it. The room (so-called Junior Suite but really nothing special) wasn’t worth the hassle of re-packing and unpacking all our stuff for just 2 nights as apart from the addition of a lounge pool, it wasn’t that different from our current room, so we said we would go with the massages but we explained that we really didn’t think this was adequate when we were paying over 600 euros a night for what is truly the worst 5 star hotel we have ever stayed in. The management make a pretence of caring about feedback but they truly don’t, as evidenced by the highly inappropriate responses to all the negative reviews. They did not seem to understand that moving rooms halfway through a short stay of four nights is not really worth the upheaval, in fact last night we received another email saying that they would now offer us to move to a room with a pool view - but for just one night! We of course declined as who wants to spend their final day of a holiday packing up all their stuff to move for one night?||Relais & Chateaux should remove this hotel from their collection, as it is truly an embarrassment to the brand. We had booked the hotel through Mr & Mrs Smith which we have previously found a reliable curator of good hotels, but we shall not make that mistake again.||Before visiting Petra Segreta, we stayed at Albero Capovolto and Gallicantu, both of which were wonderful, and yet less than half the price of Petra Segreta. I highly recommend you book at Gallicantu instead of Petra Segreta as you will find there a beautiful and well-maintained property and excellent service. Petra Segreta should take a lesson from them.||A few positive points, that should be noted to be fair: the breakfast was good, the view is beautiful and the apology massage we had was very relaxing, with a lovely therapist. Sadly, at Petra Segreta though, the bad far...

To start with the positive, this is a very beautiful hotel. My partner and I came here for a few nights in mid September to celebrate our engagement. The design of the hotel is stunning, the views are incredible and the food is exceptional. We ate in Il Fuoco Sacro on our final night and it was one of the best meals we've ever had. I would highly recommend this restaurant if you are looking for somewhere for a very special occasion. ||Now onto the negative. As mentioned, this was a special trip for us and we had pushed the boat out to stay at the Petra Segreta. I think it's fair to say that for a hotel of this price, you wouldn't expect things to go wrong but that if things were to go wrong, you'd expect the hotel to do their utmost to make things right. We're not particularly demanding guests, but a few things went wrong that unfortunately soured our experience of this hotel. The first is that we were kept up through one of our nights by noisy occupants in the adjacent room who were shouting and having calls on loudspeaker in the early hours of the morning. We had to have the hotel go round to the other guests' room and knock on the door (which they ignored), then phone them to ask them to keep the noise down. In the main, this was of course an issue outside of the hotel's control, but the thin walls of the room did clearly contribute to the issue too, because when the other guests brought their voices down to a normal level, we could still hear their conversation word for word. But whoever the responsibility lay with, the result was that we had a rubbish night's sleep and were charged a steep cost for it. We spoke to the Petra Segreta team the next day and they offered to move us to a different room. This was presented as being a huge favour, whereas I felt it was the bare minimum. When we got to the new room, we quickly realised that there were shards of broken glass all over the floor so went back to reception, who sent someone over to clean up, but there didn't seem to be much concern about the danger or explanation of how we'd been given an apparently freshly cleaned room but there is broken glass everywhere. Our sense was that the hotel's focus was on remedying issues quickly, but with no sense of compensating in any way for the inconvenience, which felt jarring at a five-star hotel. We also had an issue twice during our short stay with going to the spa (which guests are allowed to book for 1 hour per day) and finding that the sauna hadn't been switched on, meaning it wouldn't be warm enough in time for us to use it. It wasn't a major issue, but it contributed to the sense that we were spending a lot of what was meant to be a luxurious, carefree trip at the reception desk alerting them to problems. ||The final frustrating issue is that as my partner was checking out, the hotel charged him in full for the stay, even though I had already been charged in full in advance. They assured us that they would refund him immediately, but it took over a week and numerous phone calls from him to get them to send back the money (over £1000). When he finally received the refund, he could see that it had been actioned several days after they said it was on its way, so clearly it had been forgotten. ||My partner decided to speak to the Petra Segreta about the number of problems we'd faced during our stay and directly spelled out for them that we'd expect them to care more about the poor service and the slips in standards and that perhaps they'd like to make a gesture of goodwill to resolve the matter. They came back to us with an offer of a 30% discount on our NEXT stay at the Petra Segreta. We responded saying that we have no plans to come back to Sardinia and that to ask us to spend £1000 plus on flights and accommodation just to receive a discount didn't seem fair. The issues were with this trip, so if they wanted to offer us a 30% refund instead (equivalent to one night's stay and the same amount of money for them either way), we would consider that to be a very good resolution. The Petra Segreta declined to do this or offer us any partial refund, which we found disappointing. Overall we thought this was a real shame and that small gestures of goodwill during our stay, like a complimentary drink, which wouldn't have cost the hotel much at all, would have gone a long way to making us feel cared for as guests. But the Petra Segreta seem to have an approach to service that's at odds with that of a five-star hotel and I don't think it's doing them or their guests...

Full ditto on Frank’s review below. While booking and some of the reception staff are helpful and try their best, the place was a massive let down for us personally and here’s why.

After a pretty steep drive into the hills of San Pantaleo and the price point, you expect to be rewarded with amazing views and an exclusive experience…not the case! The rooms are nicely designed inside, however the outside space for the deluxe was unusable: sitting in a cave like enclosure with no cushions on the stone bench felt like a very expensive punishment. Apparently this was the best room they had in the category and, seeing the neighbouring rooms, I can confirm it is indeed true…and scarry. We were showed another room (still with mostly walled views) for double the price…

The facilities around the pool are dated and unattended, old chairs and umbrellas, zero service and mostly no views. There is no outside lounge or bar where you can enjoy the views and drinks. The main focus is on their ‘Michelin restaurant’ (this is the name for it rather than the actual name😂). As a guest of the hotel they make sure you don’t bother their restaurant guests. We arrived late at night, were rushed inside and ‘welcomed’ by the restaurant staff by being shown a menu standing in the door and told we had 10min to order food like we were a bother. Chose to only have a aperitif platter and drink and were shown into a side corner of the terrace with a view of, guess what!!, a wall. No welcome drink, not even a glass of water. Very unfriendly, very unwelcoming, after paying a full day for nothing.

We made a second mistake after staying here with eating at the Terazza Osteria. The service was terrible, from the tone where you are met with a lot of ‘Nos’ for anything you ask for, to forgetting things we ordered and to the food which was extremely underwhelming and worth about a third of what they charge. The wine list has hilarious mark ups. While enjoying this sad dinner we were watching the ‘Michelin experience’ downstairs. Coming from quite a lot of fine dining and starred experiences, we were shocked how this place gets this reputation let alone stars…Two of the courses were a pot of simple risotto and a plate with tortellini 🤣 The main: piece of meat and some spinach…quite honestly that is offending at 220 a head. We did not even consider eating here as the breakfast was so bad (3 star quality), the restaurant so sad inside and the service generally so unprofessional and unfriendly, that I would have never even dared. We were happy we didn’t. The restaurant itself has barely any views, no air, dark and low. Day service is not allowed outside (apparently because of the wasps, which are indeed plenty and nothing is done about it). Omelettes and pancakes at breakfast for extra 12eur🤣🤣 There is definitely no Michelin level coming through there!

In a nutshell, there is absolutely nothing justifying the 5 stars here nor the restaurant accolades. We had exponentially better service, facilities and food in most places we stayed in Sardinia over our many years of visiting the island. My guess is that this is an institution for old rich Italians in the area looking for a place to spend their money and meet. If you have any appreciation for service and quality and want to enjoy this beautiful island, save yourself...