Hotel Svoboda - Terme Krka

The pools are filled with salt water and are being renovated until 1.9.25. There's a bit of a price tag here, but the service is great. The hotel is quiet and near the beach, with good food and a distinctive design. Lots of lovely little swallows fly around and build nests on the walls.

The pools are great, and the area is beautiful. Some staff are excellent, while others seem confused and unsure why they're there. The food was beyond terrible, and the massage was perhaps one of the worst I've had. The gym only opens after 4, and the tennis courts are pretty much gone. The hotel feels very dated, though it's in a lovely spot.

The place was clean, the staff friendly, and breakfast had plenty of food. It's near the beach, and the pool opens early too. But it felt overpriced: a room with breakfast is 100€/person, and drinks at dinner cost too much, including 4.60€ for 1l of water. The gym doesn't open until 4pm. There were no bath mats in the tub, which seems a bit dangerous for older people.

Disappointed, especially for a 4* hotel in one of the most beautiful parts of the Slovenian coast. We paid over 300 per night for a family apartment with kids under 7, and I expected much better service and more professional handling of problems. The service at meals was the biggest letdown. The waitresses were very unfriendly. Once, they wouldn't let our kids, aged 6 and 5, carry food to the table because they might spill it. In fact, I was the only one who spilled anything during our stay. Another time our drinks arrived without glasses. When I asked for some, the waitress said I should have requested them when ordering, even though we'd ordered bottled water and wine. I'm still not sure how we were meant to drink from the bottles without feeling weird or looking classy in a 4* hotel. We ordered the same drinks on two evenings, but the bills differed. When I asked why, the waitress made a scene and left without a proper explanation. The receptionist first said this wasn't part of his job, then checked with restaurant coworkers. They said there were separate lunch and dinner price lists, and they'd forgotten to switch to the dinner prices. I'll leave that there. The food was OK, but below what I'd expect from a 4* hotel. Some dishes ran out after 1.5 hours of dinner service and weren't replenished. There weren't any special or gourmet choices at the bar, mostly standard options like chicken, low budget fish, fried pork, and beef. We'd had better service at 2* and 3* hotels. I've stayed at quite a few highly rated 4* and 5* hotels in recent years, and never experienced this many flaws in the hotel's operations. I'm sad to say I wouldn't recommend booking or staying at the hotel Svoboda. One more disappointment: we'd been promised an apartment with a view of Strunjan Salina park. When we arrived, there was no such view. The receptionist told me that was just an internal “expression” for that side of the hotel.