Sorrento, Masse Lubrense, Hotel Villa Lubrense

we stayed at Casa correale about three blocks from the train station, big spacious bedroom, bath half the size of the bedroom, very large. Also the owner had a restaurant down on the sea out of town, came and got us and took us home , Wonderful stay. went to Capri one day, amalfi coast the next, returned unexpectedly aftewr trip ti sicily www.correalesorrento.com No taking passport , delightful people. 5 star !!!

After searching through many holiday sites for 3 & 4 star hotels, I came upon the Sorrento, Masse Lubrense, Hotel Villa Lubrense. I was impressed by the website and subsequently booked.

We were a day late booking in as we had a hire car breakdown in Naples and stayed in an hotel for the first night. On arrival, we found a young girl acting as a receptionist who relieved us of our passports and gave us a key to room 304. This gave the impression that we would be in room 4 on the 3rd floor of a hotel. Not so. We were on the second floor of a small block of rooms situated within what appeared to be a site full of wooden chalets with corrugated roofs. Bearing in mind that this was listed as a 3 star hotel, alarm bells were ringing. We asked for a balcony and were told that all rooms had a balcony so we asked for a sea-view if possible. There was no balcony but one could sea the bay of Naples by hanging out of the window.

The room was about 4 metres square with a small bathroom room off it. The bedroom itself was not very well decorated or cleaned. It contained a double bed with two tired single mattresses on it, some flat-pack furniture and a fridge. God knows why a fridge as there was no kettle or any other means of getting a hot drink. The room faced onto a boiler room although one got used to the noise of the boilers cutting in and out after a few days.

The hotel website says All bedrooms have bathroom with shower, balcony and heating. - not true. The bathroom had no bath but a very small shower (500mm x 500mm) with a cracked tray and broken corner opening door. The tiles were jaded and had wall-plugs here and there from the fixing of old fittings and the old plastic bathroom fittings gave an air of the place being run-down. Completely in keeping with the rest of the room. We had no balcony, and on some of the chilly evenings, the heating was down to a portable halogen heater, as the central heating didn't seem to work. The bed linen was fairly well worn with one flat pillow each and was not changed for the week. The towels were changed once.

This place hardly warranted 1 star, never mind three. Don't get me wrong, the wife and I have stayed in 1 star places before but having paid 1 star prices. This left us feeling that we had been ripped off.

We were booked as bed and breakfast. On the first morning, we made our way to the restaurant; for breakfast to find a serving table containing two thermos jugs of coffee or tea, both tepid and stewed, a jug of milk and a plate of dry cake covered with a paper napkin; almost inedible really. There were no staff at all. The large dining area so cleverly photographed on the website was completely empty save for ourselves. We breakfasted out that morning and as it turned out, for the rest of the week.

The final straw was when we were charged 2€ per day for the use of the fridge! We had to pay up to get our passports back.

The pool was empty; of water that is. There was hardly anywhere to sit outside. No other facilities at all. No entertainment. Nowhere to eat and Villa Lubrense is on a mountain road, quite a few kilometres out of Sorrento. But for the rental car, it would have been totally disastrous.

If you look at their website, you may be impressed by the very good cosmetic job the photographer has done and may be taken in as we were. Personally, I would never go there again and would advise others against it as we saw quite a few proper 3 star hotels at similar prices to the £460 pp/pw but with much better facilities and staff.