Primo Hotel

The room was clean, the hard mattress was really comfortable, and I could check in late and enter by myself. I only stayed one night, though, and my single room had no windows, no air conditioning, and no proper source of fresh air. It got stuffy after a while. There were fans to move the air around, but they didn't bring in oxygen. The rechargeable cordless dehumidifier hadn't been charged either. Dear primo team, maintaining this room should be a priority if you want guests to have a decent stay even in a single windowless room. Otherwise, use it as a utility room. Breakfast was a buffet with lots of prepackaged pastries and a capsule coffee machine. If you're after chic, this isn't the place, but it's okay for a stay.

Air conditioning worked perfectly, and we had clean towels and even a bidet in the bathroom. The location was convenient, about 10-15 minutes on foot to the center of Catania and 15min to the beach, with supermarkets, bars, cafés, and bakeries along the way. But the room was meant to be modern, and while the furniture was okay, the walls were very dirty. The bed was uncomfortable, the bathroom was dirty, and I had to turn off the electricity at night because the noise kept me awake. My room was on - 1, with just a window and a very small balcony looking onto a dirty, noisy backyard. Breakfast was planned but wasn't served before 8 am, so we couldn't have it and still get to our conference on time. The reception was almost empty, and the front door was left slightly open most nights, so people from the Neighborhood could have entered easily.

The neighborhood felt awful to us: trash on the streets, people staring and bothering you. Check-in itself went fine, but the lobby was humid and smelled like chlorine. We booked a room with a balcony based on the Booking.com photos, but the lobby is on the ground floor and the rooms are in a basement. Ours was on the lowest floor, without normal windows or a balcony. The walls were dirty and peeling, the room was very humid, and the bathroom looked poor. The trash can even broke when I tried to open it. There were paper stickers everywhere telling guests what to do, curling up from the humidity. It felt like a Turkish sauna. Our basement room advertised as having a balcony had poor lighting and just two tiny extra windows with “jail” bars. The rooms that actually had balconies faced a trash-filled alley. The sofa faced a wall on the way to the bathroom. Then a BUG crawled out from under the bed, and we decided we weren't staying. A total rip-off. For this money, you can get a much better deal anywhere in the city. No idea how anyone could stay in this area and hotel. Total disgrace, STAY AWAY!

We were happy to have booked only one night, because the stay was very unpleasant. The room smelled moldy and the towels weren't clean. Staff were rude both when we arrived and at checkout, and they hadn't sent the instructions we needed to get in. They also couldn't communicate in English to help us enter, which left us feeling very unwelcome. They should consider doing something else for work. The neighborhood didn't feel safe at all, and our taxi driver confirmed that we shouldn't walk there. I'd advise choosing another hotel.