Welcome Sicily

If I could rate Welcom Sicily minus 10, I would. The name promises a welcome, but our experience was the opposite. We were treated disrespectfully and spoken to with profanity and insults. It felt like they made €70 by canceling two nights of our booking without refund. The B&B is in a restricted traffic zone, or ZTL, but that wasn’t mentioned in the listing. Driving in could mean a fine of €140-€160. Their Booking page also claimed there was free parking next to the building, but there wasn’t. We were told to use a lot 10-15 minutes away, about 3 km from the B&B, which doesn’t seem close to me. They warned us that being even one minute late after check-in would mean a €15 fee. When I asked why, I was told, “I need money for the taxi.” I told reception at 9:15 p.m. that the ferry had delayed me, so it wasn’t my fault, and that I’d arrive by 10. He rudely accused me of trying to cheat, even though I’d already paid. Cheat him out of what? I don’t know. At 9:50 p.m. I called because the road to the place was blocked. The owner canceled my reservation himself, saying I was late and hadn’t shown up. He kept the 70 euros without doing anything, told me to deal with Booking.com, hung up, and insulted me by saying I couldn’t read. I have screenshots of the listing. Customer service: minus 10. I strongly do not recommend him to anyone.

Calling this a bed and breakfast is odd when there’s no breakfast. The location is central, but there are no real amenities. My room had no TV and no heating apart from a small electric heater. It wasn’t clean, and the entrance hall constantly smelled of smoke. Nobody was there when I checked out. At check-in, Mr. Rosario asked to charge my card before handing over the room keys. A truly disappointing stay. Best regards.

The staff were friendly, and the price was cheap, though not cheap enough for what you get. Parking was hard to find, but a friend of the owner let us use his after he’d finished his business. The bathroom has an electric toilet, and we were told to put toilet paper in the bin. Be careful on the street. We weren’t given a receipt. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

WARNING, be careful. The photos I uploaded show the place as it is. The Booking.com pictures are out of date, and the accommodation was in catastrophic condition. The sheets were stained and the beds were metal. One bed had a headboard made of laminate pieces nailed to the wall, and the other had no headboard at all. Our “private bathroom” had been used by other people, with dirty black shoe prints on the floor. There was black mold all over the bathroom and the fixtures were completely rusty. We didn’t want to touch anything. There was no air conditioning. The worst thing was someone coming into our room at 1 a.m. and taking a fan. When we asked about it, the owner first acted as if he knew nothing, then admitted he had entered and taken it, saying the fan was broken. After that I didn’t feel safe there. The location is good, but it’s extremely noisy at night until 4-5 a.m. Drugs are also sold on this street.