Smeralda Village by Elite Smeralda Room

This place is run down and looks out over a roundabout. I’d avoid it. The website photos are misleading. My own pictures show the worn façade, a cheap bed without even a headboard, and the unappealing view from our apartment terrace. We got one roll of toilet paper, and there wasn’t much in the way of supplies. It felt like a two-star place, not three. Getting rid of rubbish in Porto Rotondo was bizarre. There are five bins for sorting, but no bin liners are provided. They give you an RFID card to open a rubbish drop-off box more than a hundred metres away, across a couple of streets. It takes three people to manage the whole thing. Parking is off-site, hard to find, and didn’t look safe, though the area itself is pretty safe. A guard dog at the police station across from the apartment barked frequently for long stretches overnight. Maybe that helped with the parking, if only we could sleep. The reception had no sign, so good luck finding it. Its office hours also don’t fit typical flight arrival and departure times. The pool was OK, but closes for lunch, which was a first for us. The beach and marina are farther away than described, though there’s a supermarket around the corner. On arrival we had to pay tourist tax in cash, €70 for end-of-stay cleaning, which doesn’t include the kitchen or rubbish disposal, and a deposit. That seemed to be the full extent of the staff’s interest. We were so unhappy with the apartment we were assigned that we asked to see another. One had a garden view and was a bit bigger, but a few hours later we learned we could move only if we paid €300 more. That might have been a fair price difference, but it wasn’t a good way to treat customers or earn a positive review. The next morning we found somewhere else, which cost us extra, well over €300, but made our Sardinia stay absolutely fantastic. You can find my review of that place on Google. We came back here on the final night to check out and because it was closer to the airport for our early flight. Checkout just involved asking whether we’d emptied the rubbish and collecting the key card for the rubbish box. This amateur operation spoils people’s holidays and is terrible value. I feel BA shouldn’t include this place in BA Holidays.