We read the bad reviews and didn't believe it could be so bad, unfortunately we believed the good ones and booked 3 nights here. Please believe this review, it is a terrible place to stay and ruined our experience of Calabria. You have to pay upfront for your stay: that should be a warning, it means you will have difficulty cancelling when you have experienced the rooms or breakfast, etc. The whole place needs updating. The rooms ok, but not for a 4 star hotel. The young 18 year old who showed us to our room told be I had got the wrong suite, even though the receptionist had given us that information. The information was quite brief and we were not given details of where the breakfast room was or shown how to get to the beach, which wasn't obvious. The aircon did not work in either of our rooms. When we complained, to cut a long story short, we were told it was working. On our insistence, the following day, after an extremely sweltering sleepless night, (not helped by a diesel engine of some sort starting up beneath our window at 4 am and continuing to disturb us for about an hour) the airvents were cleared of a lot of accumulated debris. It improved but only very slightly. This probably had contributed to the strange smell each room had. Our room was not made up on the first day and the receptionist offered for it to be done the next morning. At the cost of the room, we were not prepared to have a lack of paid for service and asked for it to be done whilst we went out for dinner. To be fair the manager/deputy manager? did come to apologise, but made the excuse that it had been a difficult day, which actually wasn't our business; as guests, we expect service not excuses. At the breakfast buffet, by definition 'help yourself' one was prevented from selecting croissants, cake, cheese, ham, etc by a waiter who was over-protective of the selection on offer. This was extremely irritating. I had to remove the tongs from him, (which he had hidden under the the cold cuts unit), so that I could select what meat and cheese I wanted, not what he chose to give me. The fruit juice was sunny delight! There seemed to be every type of fake milk but no proper cow's milk for tea, only warm UHT. The food at lunchtime was poor: the described as 'crispy vegetables' in my pasta very much not so and the slivers of octopus(?) like slices of school eraser. The platter of fresh fruit consisted of tasteless watermelon and completely unripe melon and peaches. The pool area could have been amazing, but the pool was not well-maintained with mosaic tiles missing and green growth on the walls. The sunloungers of very poor quality plastic, did not feel very sturdy, and in fact creaked on use. Also music playing from a laptop attached to speakers meant it was not a relaxing place to read. The young lifeguard seemed pre-occupied with other things and am not sure if he would be aware of any problem if it occurred in the pool. On a very windy day he used a petrol blower to blow petals from pool area while everyone was still enjoying the pool and afternoon sun. Being very windy already, it was a pointless exercise since all the dead petals blew around anyway and all he achieved was a noisy, smelly disturbance for the hotel guests. The barman was a positive and we enjoyed the cocktails, but not the noisy 'entertainment' which had to be endured with them - karaoke one night, a noisy theme-music to the films quiz for a second and a singer with taped accompaniment actually in the bar, so was too loud to have a conversation and enjoy a peaceful digestif or coffee. The view from our balcony was admittedly amazing as we could see Stromboli and experience the sunsets. The balcony would have benefitted from some softer seating, such as a couple of sunloungers. The chairs provided meant we couldn't sit for long in comfort. There were also loads of inhabited House Martin nests, which is actually fine, as the birds were a joy to see swooping about as the sun set. However, regular cleaning up of their droppings should have been a must, especially as a drying rack for wet swimwear and towels had been provided and items could easily be dropped on! The landscaping/gardens - bushes and flowers were well planned, and this actually made the place look quite pleasant until you looked more closely at everything else and take into account the fact that the staff didn't really care about the quality of service or food provided. Overall, this was not a great experience, any positives mentioned completely cancelled out by the negatives and we left very disappointed.…