Hotel Caparena

Hotel Caparena was very nice with clean rooms and great staff, we had a lovely time in Toamina! The shuttle bus was excellent we used it every day a special thank you to Salvatore, Pipo and drivers! The restaurant staff were amazing especially Nadine, Andrea, Adriano not to mention the rest of the gang! Lots of love Maria & Martin XxX

I am writing this mainly in response to Lisa G's review. I am staying at the hotel now and do not agree with many of the comments made. Bad reviews can be very damaging and I feel this one has been designed to damage. The first comment about having difficuly making themselves understood. We are in Italy, we can't expect everyone to be fluent in English, having said that we have had no difficulty communicating, despite only being able to say the pleasantries in Italien. Overall the staff have been very good, I think some people mistake grumpiness for quite a dry sense of humuor some have. The next comment about the litter I can't agree with. We were here when she wrote this and I have never seen any litter around, they keep the place very well. The pictures of rust have been very selective, and look some were taken in the beach area. They have been painting this area since we arrived so must have been doing this at the time these pictures were taken. Bland food? I completely disagree with this. If you are half board here at the list rate it is 70??? half board for 2, 35??? each, for 3 courses. This is good value and I have had some of the best pasta here. The menu does have a strong seafood and fish bias which may not be to everyone's taste, but this is Sicily. Perhaps not ideal for British or American kids, but better for them than Pizza and burgers. There is a lovely beach restaurant that is unfortunately reserved for functions, even if it was opened to guests for a few nights it might encourage more guests to eat in. More about the funtions later. There are some things I might give constructive critism of. The rooms are simply furnished, some drawers for the holiday bits and pieces would be good and we had to request more coat hangers. The carpets are worn in places and should be on the upgrade list. We have only been to the pool area once. The pool was clean enough but there was a tide mark around the top of th liner which should be cleaned. This can be a problem where there is no overflow lip to prevent this. We are here for 2 weeks. If I was to come back, I would only stay for a week. There is a free shutlle into Taormina and you can walk along to Letojanni, but anything more and you really need a car. As a Brit and driving on the other side of the raod I am a bit reluctant to drive here as virtually every car has scrapes and the standard of driving is on the low side. Beware of the pedestrian crossings, they don't appear to mean anything, even the police won't give way to you. The other two things to note is there is a single track railway runs through the property. The line is electric and the trains seem to pass in the nearby Letojanni station. This means that generally they pass slowly and are not intrusive. Nobody seems to pay them any attention as they pass. The last one is functions. This is not purely holiday hotel, many guests seem to stay for short periods and they do run functions on the other side of the railway at times, we have had 2 in 10 days. There is loud music, but this has stopped before midnight and the rooms are double glazed so it doesn't interfere with sleep if you are in bed before then. Treat my review as my opinion, but do consider it alongside Lisa G's