Grand Hotel Vesuvio

My husband and I visited here in August 2019. We did so with a little trepidation, as so many reviews on here seem very negative. There are many good points to the hotel, including the staff - I’m quite sensitive to mosquito bites, and the reception staff kindly helped with medication, as well as some glue when my shoe broke on my way out one day! Helping with the little things was really kind. The bedrooms are not huge, but they are very clean - we had a sunny room with a balcony, overlooking the Bay of Naples and views of Vesuvius - absolutely glorious. The bedroom decor was very fresh (blues and whites), and the air con was more than adequate. The bathroom seemed a little dated - certainly the flush on the loo was a bit infuriating as you had to depress the button several times to get it to flush. The pool was very popular with folks who want to sunbathe (not really our thing), but it had a great atmosphere and was a bit quieter in the evening (closes at 7pm). Very nice to sit with a book and overlook the bay! It was also very very clean and well maintained. The gym is very, very basic - more a few weights and a couple of treadmills in a small room with no air con (not ideal in 30+ degrees), but most people don’t go on holiday to exercise! The staff were all very accommodating at dinner, and tried their best, although they struggled a bit with me (as a vegan). I was mainly served a plate of vegetables, which got a bit repetitive, but if you are half board, you can swap your dinner for a lunch. This was great because you could happily go to one of the great restaurants in the area in the evening. The food was adequate - not amazing, and given that TUI were notified of our dietary requirements, I would have liked a bit more choice, given that we’d pre-paid for dinner. That said, we found we could request soya milk every morning, so breakfast was quite fine. The staff are busy, but we found them very helpful - they will speak English, even when we were trying our terrible Italian on them. The hotel runs a free shuttle bus, which is very handy if it’s warm, or you don’t fancy the 20 min walk into town. I do think people have been incredibly melodramatic about the danger of walking on the road. We walked into town twice (once at night!) and didn’t feel at all at risk of imminent death by dangerous drivers (maybe these folk are a bit older?)! There are parts of the road where there are no pavements, but we found drivers consistently considerate, giving pedestrians plenty of space. Just keep your wits about you and you’ll be fine. We leave very early tomorrow, and the staff have said they will do a packed breakfast for us to take onto the coach transfer, which is very, very kind! A very peaceful week in Sorrento with incredible, incredible views!

40th wedding anniversary trip, so, we were looking to stay somewhere new and somewhere fairly special. We paid the extra for a Sorrento Bay view from our room. Well worth the money. Our room was just above the terrace bar, with uninterrupted views over Sorrento, all the way to Naples and Vesuvious. Brilliant ! We could even hear the pleasant night time entertainment from the balcony. Very classy room too. The hotel is actually quite a classy place, I think. Clean and very quiet. Beautiful pool area. No hassles. Very comfortable loungers. Good pool for swimming in too. Overall, we really enjoyed our one week stay here. Regular shuttle bus down into Sorrento. Use it... no pavement and a very busy road. Food was nice, but breakfast very samey and quite limited in choice, if you are used to the Spanish set up. Nice and healthy though. I would have liked a 'large beer' to be just that ... hardly more than a half pint. I opted for the supermarket carry out and pop beers into the room fridge. It is a lovely hotel though. Nice spot above the hectic town with outstanding views over the bay.

All in all, we thought this a very good hotel, spacious and, yes, even rather grand: Stunning views over Sorrento; Great pool area (sun loungers for all!); Lovely, efficient and highly professional staff; Pretty decent food (at least by package holiday standards - obviously many of the restaurants in town will be better if you’ve got the budget); Bright, clean comfortable rooms complete with Sky TV and strong (free) wi-fi throughout the hotel. We were perplexed to read some terrible reviews of The Grand Vesuvio posted just a few weeks before we stayed. None of these resonates with our experience. That said, what could be improved? We did feel restricted by the hotel shuttle bus times, especially as service ceases between lunchtime and 4pm. That’s the one thing I’d say definitely wasn’t good enough. We found only one usable plug socket in our room for charging devices - just not enough for modern needs; If a full British breakfast is really important to you, you might be disappointed by the relatively small and unvarying number of cooked items on offer (in which case better stay home in Blighty!) However, the breakfast buffet was extensive and did include some fresh fruit. The fresh ground coffee dispensed by the machines wasn’t too shabby either. I’d say this probably isn’t a ‘true’ 4-star hotel, more like a good 3-star, but as we didn’t pay over the odds for it, no complaints.