PFA Hotel La Darsena - Follonica — Hotel in Scarlino

I spent a few days at Hotel La Darsena in July during high season and was impressed with how well run this hotel is. Upon arriving reception had my sister and I checked in swiftly and efficiently with the friendly staff (who also spoke English). Our room had been recently refurbished and had a very comfortable bed and pillows, nice bathroom (great water pressure) and air-con which is needed in July in Italy. Our room had a balcony that overlooked the swimming pool and stunning gardens.||The gardens are immaculately kept and the pool is so clean! I'm not a fan of public pools - but when they are this clean it's wonderful. Breakfast was fantastic- there was everything you could ask for - and the coffee was great. ||There is parking on-site and has an electric gate that is kept closed at night, it's good to find a hotel with safe parking. There is strong wifi available and is accessible in the reception and pool area.||The employees at Hotel La Darsena were fantastic. I have to note the hotel manager Stephania knows how to run a hotel and has great staff to ensure guests enjoy their stay. I need to compliment restaurant staff, housekeeping (which kept the rooms immaculately) and the nights watchman who was friendly (and patient) with us when we wanted a night cap of limoncello by the pool one night! I hope I didn't leave anyone out because they made our holiday a wonderful memory.||The hotel's private beach is about a km from the hotel and stunning. From where you park your car (for a small fee) it's a beautiful short walk through the pine forest to arrive. The beach is also wheelchair friendly with a recently installed wooden pathway owners laid down for easy access through the pine forest, to which arriving at the beach there are special chairs which allow ease of moving on sand. This is a fantastic service offered as it allows everyone to enjoy the beach.||We booked front row lounges by the Mediterranean to soak up some vitamin d, they’re the best seats!. There is a cafe on location that offers great snacks, cold drinks, ice cream and lunches. There are also toilets on site and all facilities are super clean. The hotel owner shows a great example by taking pride in the cleanliness and so do the staff. This is the cleanest beach I’ve been to in Italy.||Scarlino Marina is only a short drive from the hotel with beautiful boutiques, a small grocery store and gelataria. ||I will definitely return to Hotel La Darsena next time I’m in Italy and recommend hotel to those wanting a wonderful...

The worst hotel I've ever been. The attention is horrible (I would say that the directors and the receptionists were very rude with us) and it has not a good access to the beach. I think that you can find better hotels in the area.||We chose this hotel because apparently it offered a private beach and had a good price but our experience barely could have been worse. ||The attention of the director and the reception workers is specially bad: they were rude, even trying to confuse us due to the language issue, for example once we had a problem the receptionist said a thing in English but when she heard that we were asking to the director why it was not possible to do what we were asking for, she changed her words and said the opposite being rude in her language and trying to show that we were lying...||They didn't attend to our claims when we had to call a night because there was no hot water in our shower. They didn't do anything and we had to have a cold shower for 2 days and opt for having our showers earlier in the afternoons so the hot water was not consumed by the other clients!!! They have never admitted this but I were able to check that there is a maximum hot water that when is exhausted it takes some time to fill because when I opened the tap at 9 pm there was hot water again.||The WiFi cannot be worse. There is not WiFi in the rooms due to the special weak signal.||The "private" beach is not private. It is public and if you want an umbrella etc. you have to pay there per day. So there is a lot of people. The beach is good but it is 20 minutes walking from the hotel. There is also a parking but you need them to provide you with a card that proves you are hosted here (we had to be informed about this by the man who is in the parking because surprisingly the hotel didn't inform to us about that). One day my husband asked for the card and the receptionist refused to provide any because, she said, it was not necessary. However, once we arrived to the parking, they asked us for the card or a payment of 3 euros per hour... so we had to get back to the hotel where once more they refused to provide any card because they hadn't enough...| |They have also a shuttle (we were informed about that several days after our arrival) but it is very small.||We saw lots of hotels in the area that for sure would...

Our stay in Follonica was, unfortunately, far below what we had anticipated. The photos simply don’t reflect reality — the hotel is outdated, poorly maintained, and lacks the charm or quality one would expect from the images online.

The general atmosphere is quite bleak. The corridors gave off the impression of a former psychiatric facility hastily converted into a hotel, which was only reinforced when we were initially placed in a room adapted for disabled guests — despite having booked a matrimonial room. This made the setting feel even more clinical. To their credit, the staff responded kindly and promptly changed the room, which we appreciated.

Cleanliness also fell short of acceptable standards for a hotel in this category. And while the staff were truly the only bright spot — friendly, welcoming, and apologetic — they were clearly doing their best in a setting that doesn’t support them.

Breakfast was another letdown: very limited variety and shockingly poor coffee. In Italy, of all places, how can you serve what is essentially brown water and call it coffee?

Overall, I would strongly advise against staying here. The warm attitude of the staff is, sadly, not enough to compensate for the many...