Hotel Il Castelletto

The staff are lovely, but the hotel needs maintenance throughout. The shower head was broken, and there was plenty more that needed attention. Criticism doesn’t seem to be taken seriously, which is sad. It was summer, but there was no air conditioning anywhere. I assume the owner was trying to save money. We were told to open the windows and that it would cool down in the evening, yet the lift, downstairs lobby and outdoors were much cooler than the rooms.

The hot tub in the room was the one real plus. We stayed for two nights and had to move because the first room was extremely dirty, with almost everything broken. The second was a little better and somewhat cleaner, but the room’s air conditioning wasn’t working. A shower meant waiting ten minutes for hot water, and the towels and robes were old and badly washed. By 9:30 at breakfast there was almost nothing left, and the choices were dull. The whole hotel smelled strange. The spa was okay and the staff were very friendly, but I really don’t understand how this place can have four stars. I wouldn’t recommend it.

The restaurant was fantastic. We enjoyed every meal, and the waiters were outstanding and very accommodating. The hotel stay itself was poor. We were there with a tour group and found it hard to get anywhere without a car, so we spent a lot on taxis. In July the air conditioning was horrible. One night the pool was closed for an “event.” It was a rave, with drugs and X-rated activities visible from the hotel windows. Our group had a lot of kids, and the music was so loud nobody got to sleep until after midnight, when it ended.

The clean room and bathroom, working air conditioning, and lovely breakfast were real positives. The breakfast had pastries, cheese, ham, eggs, jam, yoghurt, honey and fruit salad. We were also pleasantly surprised by a big basket of gluten-free corn flakes, salty crackers and biscuits. We got a nice complimentary welcome drink, plus fried vegetables, prosciutto, salami and focaccia. The hotel is in a small village, about a 25-minute drive from Milano center, which was convenient for us. Still, we were disappointed after spending a whole weekend here. The hotel presents itself as four-star, but our room had no safe, minibar, complimentary water, kettle, coffee or anything to drink. There was lots of noise from the corridor and road, and the mattresses were noisy and quite hard. Our room’s jacuzzi was dirty, with hairs coming out of the massage jets. We complained, but nothing happened. That’s why we gave it only two stars.