Residence Borgo Degli Ulivi - Gardone Riviera, Italy 

We (myself, my wife and two kids 2 and 7)have just returned from Borgo degli ulivi and we have had a really great holiday. The grounds of the hotel are excellent for the kids they loved the pool (excellent views) and the play area. There is a bar down at the pool which sells snacks and drinks which you can charge to your room or pay at the time. The pools were watched by a lifeguard for about 11 hours a day, the small pool was great for my 2 year old as it only came upto her tummy so she felt more than happy in there, the big pool had gradual steps to get in and then sloped off to about 2 metres deep (for you swimmers it is about 15-20 metres long. If you like places that are full of English people, this isn't the place for you as we were the only english people there for the first week, there were quite a lot of Germans, Danes and dutch people there who could nearly all speak good english though(probably better than mine!) who were all very nice and sociable. If you were to have any problems they were sorted very quickly by the maintenance guy who looked permanently knackered but he was a really nice guy who took pride in his job. The view from our apartment was ok (one row back from the front row), but if you rent an apartment on the front the view is magnificent. Our room was good, however the only downside was that it was only the main bedroom that was air conditioned (which they do state on their website) which is fine for keeping the downstairs of our apartment cool, but our apartment had a second bedroom upstairs (my bedroom) that was unfortunately like an oven permanently. Saying this though the kids slept like babies in the downstairs room. There were plenty of things to do in the area from going to Venice on the train (2 hours, 55 euro return for of us), Milan (1hr 15 mins, 30 euros return for all of us) these trains leave Desenzano del garda regularly. We also drove to Verona (about 1 hour) it was well worth a visit. We hired a motorboat (40hp no license required for 215 euros inclding fuel) for a day with a company in Manerba (Nautica Gardamare?? i think! Great people and multi-lingual also) which was really great fun and a must if you want to see the lake and its surroundings from a different vantage point. It was sometimes difficult to get moored up at some ports but we barged our way in. We visited Sirmione, Torri del barco (lunch), Malcesine and Limone. This took about 9 Hours but the kids loved every minute of it. We had some mixed experiences of restaurants I won't name and shame them but we had some good meals on the lakeside at Gardone and other ok ones but with very very slow service. But our best meals by far were at a place called 'Angeli' (this may be spelt wrong but reception staff know it and they booked it for us) and another place called 'Riolet' these are both a very short distance from the apartments but i would only recommend driving as the roads are dark and quite small which would be to dangerous for walking. There is a man-made sandy beach at Toscolano Maderno which has a platform for people to jump off into the lake with heights varying from 10-20 feet high, my seven year old loved it and was very confident jumping off the highest platform (i tried hard to look confident but I was scared to death!) if you have kids 7+ it is an absolute must! the only thing about the beach is that the sun loungers are very expensive, we had three beds and an umbrella and it came to 23 euros and you can't take a towel and stick it on the beach by the lake as we saw many people uncerimoniously kicked off the beach for doing just that. If you are sporty I am sure there are some excellent roads for cycling (loads of cyclists everywhere) and also some great walks nearby as a belgian family we met went for walks up mountains most late afternoons. I am a swimmer and I had grand ideas of swimming to Bardolino and other places but after being out on the lake in a boat, I will tell you it isn't safe, but i did swim loops near the Grand Hotel which was fine but the water wasn't too clear so open water swimming experience is an advantage for seeing where you are going! If you arrive on a Saturday night/Sunday morning there is a supermarket (Sima) open in Toscalano Maderno but it is only open until 1.30 on Sundays, just drive through Toscalano Maderno and you will eventually see it on the left on your way out of the town (very limited parking). The best supermarket is the same company but it is on the south side of Salo and the roads can be rather busy especially at the weekends. One more mention is that all of the staff were very friendly, multi-lingual and helpful at the resort. All in all a very pleasent and relaxing two weeks, it would be an excellent vote if it wasn't for the air conditioning problem upstairs which for 3000 euros rent you might expect a little better, but hey heat rises! I hope my review is helpful for you