My daughter and I have just returned from a week’s stay at the Riva Marina Resort in Puglia and I’d like to discourage anyone who’s contemplating visiting this resort, but has not yet booked, to seriously reconsider. This resort is terrible on so many levels. It fell so far short of the four stars that it claims to have been awarded. At best it was a three star. The rooms are very basic to say the least and on the day that we arrived we had to ask them to replace our shower head (which was cracked and spraying water in all directions), plus our telephone, which didn’t work. A runner fell off of the shower cubicle door (it was rotten) and the shower leaked intermittently. We also had to ask someone to show us how to set the safe (which was tiny incidentally – not big enough to hold a tablet) as the instructions left with it related to an entirely different safe. There were no normal sockets, although there were unusual sockets with three vertical holes at each side of the bed and we had to buy special adapters for these from the hotel shop. There was a tiny TV hung just below ceiling level, but only showing Italian programmes. The restaurant was just awful – with tables in rows and very bright lighting – it was no more than a canteen. The food was appalling, with ‘hot’ dishes never more than luke warm and very little variation. There were no labels to indicate what the dishes were, and these were definitely needed as it was very difficult to tell, even after eating them! The wine (which was included in our package of breakfast, dinner and free bar) was on tap, so you can imagine its quality (or lack thereof). There was a pool bar open during the day, but this closed between 1.00pm and 3.00pm, so during those times drinks were not available (even including water). The only other place you could get drinks during this time was in the restaurant (if you went in for lunch). I’m not sure who thought that one up, but it’s the first time I’ve ever encountered a pool bar that closed between those hours (or indeed any times during the hours that the pool was open). I’m not much of a drinker (luckily), but this made no sense to me. On the positive side there was a nice pool, with plenty of sunbeds. This however was ruined by dance music belting out at full volume for many hours of the day. That, together with the two aquarobics sessions daily, where a girl with a head mic shouted at the top of her voice, did not make for a relaxing time around the pool. In fact we weren’t even able to carry out a conversation without significantly raising our voices. There were no beach towels (luckily I knew about this from a TripAdvisor review, so we’d taken our own). One day we went to the pool bar at 12.50 to get a drink before it closed, but they were already shutting the doors. We pleaded with the two female bar staff to let us have a drink (I only wanted water), pointing out that it was only 12.50 and the bar wasn’t supposed to close until 1.00
自動翻訳