Hotel Baia Del Capitano - Cefalu, Italy 

This hotel was reprsented well in photo's however the reality did not match up. It was a nice building from the outside but the inside was tired and dated. Our room itself was quite depressing and always had a slightly odd aroma. There was a fridge that no longer worked and the airconditioning was marginally effective. The bathroom was clean but felt like a public toiliet with functional soap and toiletpaper dispenser that you would not expect in a 3* hotel......and the towels were made of napkin material which was not comfortable at all. The pool area was nice, though the pool was smaller than it appeared in photo's. The reception staff were friendly and helpful however the waiting staff were not. The hotel is located a good distance outside of Cefalu and without a car you are a captive audience at the hotel. This is something the hotel exploit offering a limited fixed menu at very high costs. The portions, standard of food and service do not justify the cost. There was also an inflexibility to stepping outside the set menu. A bus service does run from outside the hotel, but only went 4times and day, stopping at 6pm. The nearby beach was not very nice. The beach in the centre of Cefula however was stunning and the town itself was beautiful.

Overall a good stay. We knew going in that it wasn't in the center of Cefalù and this was fine because we had a car. Though parking in Cefalù is not cheap. The hotel is clean and the staff is friendly enough and the fact that it has a nice pool and access to beaches justifies the cost. It's classified as a three-star but I've seen four stars in Italy (I live in Milan, am married to Italian and have been in Italy for seven years) that were not this nice. We just had one little incident that marred the stay. Having returned early from dinner in Cefalù as I was not feeling well (I'm pregnant and still in my difficult first trimester) all we wanted to do was relax in the room and perhaps catch some satellite TV. Unfortunately our room was overlooking the pool, which meant we had the "live entertainment" blaring in from the balcony. It was loud - we could have been in the front row. When we turned on the TV, we couldn't get the satellite box to work and could only see four German channels. I went downstairs to tell the front desk and was told (perhaps because I'm foreign and he detected an accent in my Italian) that at least I could watch some German TV. I explained that I am not German and don't speak the language so that really wasn't any help to me. The front desk clerk came upstairs and determined that the satellite box was broken. He then declared that if we wanted we could change rooms where there was a working satellite box. I asked that he just change the box. I'm pregnant, not feeling well and my room was already "unpacked" with bathing suits drying, toiletries already in the shower etc. Changing the box seemed like the most logical solution. We have a similar one in our own home and know how to do it. Long story short he refused to do it so we were stuck in the room listening to bad renditions of Getz Gilberto songs coming in from the pool area (or turning on the TV to catch CSI in German) until after midnight. Really not a big deal but for a tired, irrational pregnant woman it seemed like it at the time. One other thing - the beach gets CROWDED on the weekends in the summer. Yes, there is a roped off part for hotel guests but we had to climb over bodies and entire families spread out on the beach with their coolers just to get to that section.