Borgata Baldazza

The wedding day itself went well. Martina handled the vendors, and we loved the decor and food. She did her part very well. But the rest of our wedding week at Borgata Baldazza was full of problems. My husband and I are from the United States, and chose Sicily for our wedding because my mom was born there and I spent a lot of time there as a child. We expected to bring about 30 guests from the United States and had been confident in Martina, who seemed very professional when we first saw the venue. A lot of the trouble came from Martina's mother, who tried to scam us several times and was very unpleasant. We’d booked a set number of rooms for the week, then Martina's mother told us she had given them to another group. She insisted we find other lodging even though our guests had already been told they could stay at Borgata Baldazza. After a screaming argument, she returned the rooms we’d originally been promised. We also planned lunch and dinner there because many guests didn’t speak Italian or have transport, and we thought the restaurant was open to the public. We later learned they didn’t have full-time kitchen staff. Lunch was leftover pork and peppers from another wedding, an inedible salad, and a sandwich with wonder bread and one slice of ham. It was awful. Martina's mother said it cost 20 euros per person. We told her that wasn’t acceptable, said we’d pay for that meal but only have dinner there on the remaining scheduled days, and after another shouting match she agreed we’d have no more meals there except the included breakfast. There were also extra espresso charges we hadn’t been told about. The first day, coffee by the pool counted as "pool side service," even though we cleared our own dishes. The next morning I told guests to have espresso in the restaurant before 10:30 so it would be included. Then we were charged 3 euros for morning espresso because "only one espresso is included per person". We only heard that when ordering more. It felt like a way to get more money from us. Rooms weren’t properly introduced at check-in. The front desk person didn’t show guests where rooms were, how the locks or AC worked, or whether the rooms were clean. Many rooms were still dirty from previous guests, and several of us cleaned our own. One nice woman was left to make breakfast, clean, and change sheets and towels daily. We saw Martina's mother screaming at her, while she was handling what seemed like an impossible amount of work. BORGATA BALDAZZA treated her terribly. The wifi sucked.