Grand Hotel Aminta — Hotel in Sorrento

Before I begin, I cannot fault the staff here. They were flawless. Really friendly and attentive. However, the hotel itself is extremely tired and in need of some improvements. ||Our family of 5 had two rooms in August for a week and a half. These "garden views" were obscured by a huge tree which meant they were quite dark rooms and you didn't see much of the hills behind. The garden was a bit of a mess with pipes and other workings of the buildings. The glass was double glazed which was just as well because if you opened the windows all you could hear were the workings of the swimming pool pumps etc. There was also a consistent banging every day (presumably from rooms above) but it sounded like someone bouncing a ball. It was very loud! The rooms were quite small (especially for 3 people) and lack of places to put suitcases and hang clothes, meant that my suitcase was permanently on the floor. The cleaners came every day and seemed to do a pretty good job. The rooms would benefit from somewhere to hang swimwear and used towels as the towel rack provided in the bathroom didn't really work. Be aware that the Alexa in each room has a camera on it - so ensure the cover is over this when you arrive. Bit weird!||The rest of the hotel had similar, old-fashioned and tired decoration. Entertainment-wise, there was meant to be a disco one night that never happened and the live music was a guy sat in the corner with a microphone and keyboard. Not exactly what we were expecting and there was nobody there. In fact, after about 7pm every night there are next to no guests around. We didn't eat in the restaurant as it was extremely expensive and we preferred a more relaxed and simpler menu. There are some bar snacks but these are very average and again, very expensive. I wouldn't recommend the toasties! The days that we didn't want to eat in Sorrento, we just ended up walking down the hill and bringing back take-away pizzas to our room. I think the hotel needs to be a little more relaxed for families eating and offer some affordable bits (even just a side of chips). The beer was also €16 for a pint. So again, we often bought quite a few from the shop and consumed in our room.||The hotel pool was great. My boys loved that it was very deep and warm. It could do with being tidied up a little as it looks like it's been there since the 70's but perfectly useable. The pool attendant was great - always popping over with towels as soon as you arrived. I'm not sure why the pool closes at 7pm however. After a couple of very long days out, it would have been quite nice to get back and jump in the pool but this was not an option. If the pool was open longer, it would also encourage guests to hang around in the evening and not always head in to Sorrento for food and entertainment.||One significantly disadvantage for us, is that the hotel is at the top of a steep hill (yes some nice views), but there is no easy way to get into Sorrento. The hotel offer a free bus service to and from Sorrento. Sounds great but this is only once an hour and quite often is too busy to board. It also does not operate between midday and 3pm so you have to time everything impeccably. The walk is not particularly nice either. Through some streets that smell of urine, covered in rubbish and full of scooters whizzing past you. When you get to the bottom, you're basically walking alongside a very busy, dangerous road. The bus stop in Sorrento is also the other side of where you walk to so you can't just walk past the bus stop, see how many people are there and decide to walk, you have to make that decision way in advance. We only got the shuttle bus 3 times whilst we were there, the rest of the time we walked down and up the hill (the latter quite challenging before the additional 30 degrees heat). The bus needs to be every 30mins and drop you right at the bottom of the hill so that guests can decide on the way back, whether they can fit on or will just walk).||Check out is 10am and on our last day, the boys had a swim and then we went and sat on some outdoor sofas in the shade before our flight. A member of staff then came over and asked us to move because unbeknown to us we were apparently sat in the "afternoon seating area" and were only allowed to sit there after 3pm. We were doing absolutely no harm and not in anyones way so this left a rather bad taste in my mouth. Why have outdoor sofas when you're not allowed to use them. There are no guests around once the bar opens after 3pm so I never saw anyone using these. A little bit of common sense should prevail. Maybe they need to put some unfriendly signs up to let people know where they are allowed to sit and at what times!||Overall the hotel needs some TLC. It feels old fashioned and attempting a luxury 5* feel but failing miserably. Lots of dated bits of furniture, a very average breakfast - (where they don't even trust you to get your own pot of tea), and some good staff keeping it all afloat. New management needed perhaps? ||P.s When they say there is parking, you're basically parked on one of two ramps up to the hotel.||Would...

Overall: A great hotel for those that enjoy hotel living, this is the kind of hotel you stay at and don’t leave from. A perfect quiet, romantic vacation spot far from the hustle and bustle. We especially enjoyed the DJ/disco nights, the pool, and the beautiful views overlooking the bay and sunset.

Pros: Clean. Professional service. We loved the beautiful pool overlooking the bay, the poolside service, and our room had a gorgeous sunset view. I enjoyed the vanity area with the lights in our room, as there was minimal space in the bathrooms. Another highlight for amenities was the beautiful, large, jet tub. This was fantastic to enjoy after spending the day in the pool, or walking around downtown. The drinks from the bar were delicious, especially the French martini. The resident DJ was spinning amazing music on Thursday and Monday evenings, as lovers of live music, this was a lot of fun.

Cons: One of the only hotels that didn’t give us any honeymoon/anniversary gift, like a bottle of wine or some fresh fruit. We didn’t love that the pool AND sauna closes at 7pm. For a hotel that caters to adults, it doesn’t make sense to close the sauna that early. My partner and I wanted to enjoy the sauna after being at the pool all day and they told us it was closed. The sun was barely setting. I can’t see anyone that would want to use the outdoor sauna that overlooks the beautiful sunset in the middle of the day. I hope staff realizes the huge missed opportunity to open the bar next to the sauna and let the sauna be open to adults until at least 10pm. That gives people 3hrs after sunset to enjoy the sauna with nighttime views, order a few drinks from the bar, then grab one or two more drinks after the sauna closes. Hopefully this will be open later in the future. We would have used it more if it were open when we wanted to use it.

We also had an issue with wi-fi. Our wifi service and our TV that was connected to wifi continuously dropped and was very poor. When we brought it up to the owner, Jean Paul, he got a little bit defensive at first and was even arguing with me that “he checks the service for all the rooms, and his wifi works, we were the only ones complaining.” After more back-and-forth, he agreed to come with us to our room to test the wifi. Finally after seeing how horrible the wifi was for us and seeing that our TV kept dropping, he apologized and said he would get it fixed. When it was fixed, he found us by the pool and informed us it was fixed then asked for us to test it when we return to our room. I do appreciate the service and for getting our issue fixed.

Another big issue for me was the shuttle bus. The buses are old, some of the seats are broken and held up with ropes (literally). The further you sit in the back, the more fumes you get from the gasoline being pumped out. This hotel is very far from downtown and there is a gap in the shuttle service hours. This is very important to be aware of. There are no laundromats, shops, beaches, or anything near this hotel, you have to walk or take a shuttle.

For amenities, this hotel was one of the few that didn’t provide conditioner with their shampoo. There were no bathrobes either. The shower door was very odd, and hardly worked. If we took a shower and tried closing it, water would still spray everywhere, on the floor, and onto the toilet seat. I also did not like the suction cup floor mat on the bottom of the showers. It collected dirt and grime and was uncomfortable to sit on when using the bath tub. For the breakfast buffet, all of the juice and fruit was canned. This was extremely disappointing considering the fresh fruit and juice around. It’s not difficult to get fresh squeezed juice, or even offer some fresh lemonade to highlight the lemons...

Edited based on the hotel’s response of not understanding my review. To make it clear:

Overall description: This is an average four star hotel in Sorrento.

Service: The staff are friendly and helpful. Rooms are a bit outdated but clean. Breakfast options are limited but the flavor is okay. Compared to other staff members, those who serve breakfast are not so attentive.

Reason of two start experience: The main reason why I give it a two star is because of its location. This hotel is not in the city center. Yes, as the hotel manager responded, the view is good. The good view, TO ME, did not outweigh the inconvenience of the hotel location and relatively limited shuttle service.

Specifics: The hotel provides shuttle bus but only one round trip per hour. It starts from 9am to 1130pm, but there is a lunch break from 12pm to 3pm. If you are planning to use Sorrento as a transit place and do sightseeing in other places such as Pompeii, the location of the hotel is not ideal. Even if you are just doing sightseeing in Sorrento, I still do not recommend this hotel due to its location. Imagine that you are having dinner in the city center, and you have to catch the 830pm shuttle bus. Otherwise you will need to wait for an hour or do a 40 min walk back to the hotel.

Qualification: As the hotel manager implied that I did not read their hotel description or did not understand their selling point, I want to provide an important qualification. First, as I made it clear in the previous version, this review only says not recommending to people who plan activities near by. If you are planning to mainly stay the hotel during our vacation, this might be a good choice. Second, this review, like all Google reviews,is about my subjective and personal experience. I am not sure why a hotel need to understand MY experience in a passive aggressive tone. Third, I am surprised that the hotel manager responded in a passive aggressive tone only because I expressed my experience in a Google review, suggesting that I did not read the hotel description before booking. Earlier, I said most of the staff members are friendly. But this response to my Google review to me was very unprofessional.

Finally, I have a question to whoever responded to my Google review: Your website says that the hotel is not located in the city center. But after staying there, my experience told me that there were inconveniences for those who want to do activities near Sorrento. How does such a comment becomes something that, quoting your own words, you “would have understood” but, as the subjunctive mood in your response explicitly indicates, cannot understand now? Is this how you invalidate your...