Guest reviews La Plage Resort

by KevinTurvey Cheshire, United Kingdom

Average four star hotel - with five star staff

Arrival We booked this property through Easyjet holidays from Manchester. It is not a luxury hotel. We arrived by rental car, the journey from Catania takes about one hour*. There is a large free car park belonging to the hotel. BEWARE, The driveway up to the main road is VERY steep. When leaving, stopping to request the gates are opened means that in a low powered manual geared car the subsequent hill start is VERY difficult, the trickiest that I have been faced with in fifty years of driving. Better hire a more powerful car with automatic gears to avoid this. On arrival the staff will collect your luggage from the car and deliver it to your room. This avoids lugging cases down the many steps to reception. I wish I had known. The welcome from Alessandro and his colleagues was effusive. Guests are invited to relax on the sea-view terrace with a complimentary glass of Prosecco or juice whilst the staff deal with formalities Location A stunning location on the beach in a cove. Truly beautiful. The beach is stony and beach shoes essential in and out of the water. People seemed to be enjoying the water a great deal. It is sometimes quite rough and other times glassy smooth. The tidal range is minimal. The hotel has its own section of beach where residents can use the (rather uncomfortable) loungers free of charge. A very helpful lifeguard will allocate loungers and ensures that unused loungers are not ‘hogged’ with towels by people who are, in fact, elsewhere. A major drawback of the property for some people will be the number of steps to climb. Walking from La Plage to the nearby village of Mazzaro involves climbing over 100 steps. In the heat that is pretty exhausting and there is no alternative. A trip up to Taormina involves 100+ steps, a walk to the cable car and a €3 ticket each way. A day pass is €10 and a weekly visitor pass €50. There are a few restaurants in Mazzaro but only ‘beach’ shops. By car the E45 motorway is easily accessible and from that Syracuse, Messina and Palermo are within a 1- 2.30 h drive. Rooms We had booked a Garden View bungalow, which on reflection seems to be the lowest grade of accommodation. The bungalow was small, with no easy chair and just enough room to walk around the bed. The shower room was well fitted out but has a full height semi transparent door - my least favourite feature in any hotel room. Even after forty-three years of marriage I prefer privacy in my ablutions etc. There was a safe, cable TV (with no UK content) and wifi which was so poor that we used 4G throughout our stay. The air-conditioning was dreadful; impossible to understand the controls. After requesting assistance the solution was to pull out the fuse. Some garden bungalows have a semi private seating area, ours did not. Luckily our neighbours did not sit outside at the same time as we did otherwise we should have been shoulder to shoulder. Sea-facing bungalows have more privacy with hedges and fences. They have their own loungers and some a plunge pool. You can tell which guests have a sea-facing bungalow from the smug look on their faces. There are some standard style, sea-facing rooms which seemed to have private balconies - I would have preferred one of those. Housekeeping was efficient but intrusive; things that we had clearly moved for a purpose were re-instated in their original locations. The room was kept clean and towels were plentiful. Food and Beverage The breakfast was good, with plenty of choice - except that if you wanted an egg other than scrambled or boiled you were required to pay a supplement. Service was very good and the juices tasty. They even provide Prosecco for those seeking a touch of shameful decadence (which I did a couple of times). The fresh fruit was infested by fruit flies. The restaurant by the water’s edge charges about twice the local going rate and was usually empty. We did not use it. A glass of wine at the hotel bar was €10. Along the beach is a bar which charges €4 for a similar glass. We drank there. Facilities There are very few facilities. For some reason there is no pool. Seating areas are poorly maintained with grass sprouting between paving slabs. There are very few chairs in which to relax. The ones that are available are not in the shade and are worn out and mis-matched. There is a small gym which we did not explore. At weekends the resort is a popular wedding venue, sometimes three weddings at a time, during which other residents are rather squeezed out of the meagre public areas. Disability access throughout the property is non-existent and no effort appears to have been made to address the needs of people with limited mobility. The local tax of €5 pp per day is a sting in the tail at checkout but not the hotel’s fault. We enjoyed our week in Sicily. Etna was amazing and belched smoke throughout. Messina was disappointing. A highlight of the trip was discovering the tiny village of Novara di Sicila during a drive through the mountains. Clinging to the mountain face this place has remained in a time-lock. It could have been 1920 or 1820, wonderful place, wonderful people. We bought a bottle of wine in the local grocery store, that had to guess at a price; it was the best we bought all week and half the price of anywhere else. As for La Plage Resort, we could have done worse, could have done better. I would not return nor recommend it to others but the staff were great. We used Enterprise Car Rental and have no complaints about the car but we had to queue for two hours in the airport terminal to do the paperwork and then walk to the car park to collect the car. We were grumpy about this - as was everyone - but no-one made a fuss as car hire firms can really cause problems if they choose. From the airport to La Plage Resort there is a pretty coastal road or an Autostrada (E45). Take a ticket and hand over a contactless card when leaving. Cost is 2-3 Euro. Other trips cost as little as €0.8.

by MarinTraveler1 Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

I wouldn’t.

Four of us stayed for four nights, an unwise choice I’d never repeat. The prevailing ambiance here evokes a middle school student theatrical production. Makeshift, shabby, ambitious are the adjectives that come to mind. The resort has no pool, so one turns to the big pebble beach, and to walk on it with pain a purchase of special footwear becomes essential. The beach is crowded and the water tepid to shockingly chilly. The view centers on a pathetic little island which has long seen better days! The water is clear and seems clean. The entire painful pebble beach area offers the same clean water, but that’s it. The resort’s breakfast buffet was satisfactory. Guest rooms are more or less suitably appointed but the flooring is conducive to ongoing dirt tracks. The tv has no discernible English language options. The wifi was weak and needed to be reimplanted constantly. Very irritating. The very best thing about this down in the mouth hotel (with a train running through it, by the way) are the superb and touchingly dedicated housekeeping staff, who bend over backwards to oblige any request. These affable ladies work like hell and keep the place as clean as it’s present condition is going to allow. There are also no lifeguards on the beach and we had a VERY scary experience when one of our party got a cramp in his leg in water over his head and one of the young kids with us swam ashore and begged a sunbather to lend us his float. This was not at all funny but the hotel beach staff were nowhere around. The front desk staff was helpful calling taxis. This once no doubt cute little resort is now prevailingly sad.

by tinasI1549OZ

Beautiful seafront setting

Staff were friendly and helpful, and all spoke excellent English. We stayed 2 nights in a bungalow with small area which had its own table and chairs. On the beach which was pebbled the water was clear and a view of Isola Bella which was so relaxing after driving Sicily for 9 day. It was a great way to end our holiday, we both loved Sicily.

by 512brandenr Cape Town Central, South Africa

Awesome end to our Italian holiday

This was our last stay before heading home, and we were at Capotaormina reading peoples horrible reviews of La Plage wondering what to expect. It completely blew me away. First impression was excellent. Drove down the driveway (self driving rental) and a gentleman from hotel greeted us checking our name off a list showing us where to park and taking our bags. Shown to reception taken and seated outside overlooking Isola Bella and the beaches and checked in with something to drink. - we have been to some top resorts in Mauritius and this experience gave me that kind of a feeling. We had a Garden bungalow, it was neat and modern finishes with Aircon and good use of space. I feel that there is more privacy from hotel rooms and sea view bungalows because of less foot traffic and I’m going to go to beach or beach bar to see the sea anyway not lie in room all day. Service was exceptional. Went down to ‘private’ beach that reminded me exactly of Mauritius. The beach belongs to the public/ the town in the sense that people walk along the waters edge and very seldomly through the hotel guests but the loungers and umbrellas are all owned and run by the hotel and there are 2 guys on the beach managing it all. 1 or 2 hawkers walk past trying to sell stuff as they do in Mauritius and other beaches I have been to at home in South Africa but it’s not a public access beach. Some people complain wanting a private beach but if you see the area understand it’s very touristy and very small then you get why it can’t be completely closed off, which I don’t think is the hotels doing/choice Swimming area at the beach is public but so nice and big and you can float around or swim. Food - had a pizza and granita on the beach, not very cheap but not very expensive. Taormina is a tourist town and La Plage is one of the prime positioned beach and hotels but €10 for margarita pizza and €5 for granita and the quality was very good I was happy to pay that with the view and bringing it to me on the beach. Breakfast - the best by far on our Italian trip. Fruit full selection not just 2/3 options. Fresh pastry also full selection. Vegetables raw and pickled and grilled options and bacon sausage eggs. All delicious and freshly made coffee didn’t taste burnt Cable car was easy to use and not so far away but is a bit of an effort up some stairs, when it’s hot, and with pregnant wife but take it easy and it’s fine. No pool but why do you need it They Sell shoes for those that need on the pebble beaches, I didn’t and lots of people walk to waters edge kick of shoes or sandals and go swim. All in all an excellent stay and a lot of the bad reviews lowered expectations and then was blown away.

by ENC250 Sicily, Italy

Very Disappointed not 5 stars

Disappointed. We came here for our anniversary. Monica was amazing and so helpful. However, for the most part the rest of the staff was very unhelpful. Our air conditioner broke and we moved rooms, then we moved back, then the jacuzzi was broken so we moved rooms again and that jacuzzi was also broken. The beach is widely over crowded and the food is absolutely terrible - worst Italian food I’ve ever had, don’t get me wrong the view is spectacular but that’s the only thing it has going for them. Overall, wouldn’t recommend and suggest staying elsewhere.