B&B Mondello

Convenient.

The owners made us feel welcome and were friendly. It's a quiet area, with the sea only a short distance away.

Our first days in Sicily were a letdown, though thankfully we only spent four days there. We'd booked nearly three months ahead, but just ten minutes before arriving, a neighbor who knew the B&B owner told us we'd been moved to her private house. She'd known about the change since right after we booked, and nobody had informed us. Moving might have been fine if all the services we'd paid for were still available, but there was no private parking or washing machine. Instead, she offered to sell us laundry service through her neighbor, although laundry was supposed to be included. The house was old and not in good shape, with dirty pans and cutlery, bathroom cobwebs, and no closet. The owner seemed downright annoyed when we made reasonable requests.

The chance to cook in the kitchen did help us save money, but the stay had quite a few problems. The owner was kind, yet he doesn't seem to take criticism of how he runs the place well, and answers many negative reviews on the website or your phone number, if you've unfortunately given it, rather rudely. We were surprised to find that an open-topped wall by the bathroom only partly separated our two-room apartment from other rooms. Our room's glass door, which didn't feel fully secure, faced that wall. We could hear the neighbors talking and were disturbed by light coming on at night. Fortunately nobody smoked, or smoke could have drifted in too, and they must have smelled our cooking. The balcony was also used as the entrance to the other rooms, so we had to keep its door shut with the shutters, while the entrance to our apartment was on the opposite side. It looked like a nice two-room apartment at first, but the cleaning was really just the floors and bathroom. The fridge interior wasn't very clean, and there was dust here and there, plus old spider cocoons under some pictures. A big rug in front of the bedroom closet stopped it from opening. Breakfast wasn't made for us as at other B&Bs. We had to prepare it ourselves from tea, coffee, a couple of packaged cakes, biscuits, jam, and sugar in a bowl with no lid, then wash everything afterward. More guesthouse than B&B, really.