Villa Diodoro

The hotel is in a lovely situation with great views, especially from the pool area. It is about 10 minutes from Taormina, I stayed at the hotel for two weeks in September 2019 with my wife. The room was spacious However i do not feel we got the room we booked. We booked a superior room with a sea view. I feel we did not get what we booked. There was a sea view which could only be seen when you put your head out the window and looked over some mature trees to a small patch of sea. My main complaint with the hotel lies with the breakfast. There was no fruit salad available which is available in all hotels we stayed in in Italy. The "rice krispies" and "cornflakes" available were very sweet and the nearest thing to wallpaper paste I have eaten. I consider that a four star hotel. whose guests include many Irish and English guests, should provide fruit salad and real kelloggs cornflakes and rice krispies in the mornings for breakfast. I also tried the muesli and to me it tasted like straw. Also the scrambled eggs, boiled eggs and rashers for breakfast were always cold. A four star hotel should be able to provide hot scrambled egg, hot boiled eggs and hot tasty looking rashers for breakfast. My honest opinion is that most people accept what they are presented with for breakfast and fail to realise they have paid dearly for their breakfast especially in a four star hotel. My wife assured me the yoghurts were very watery also. Two incidents at breakfast stand out. One morning four staff members has to be asked to refill the fresh milk container. Also one morning they ran out of butter and my wife was told by a manager it would be the following morning before some would be available. Lo and behold a member of staff found some butter and the day was saved. I also got the impression that the staff in the dining could not wait until you were finished your breakfast frequently clearing things of the table while you were still eating. I found the staff in the hotel very stand offish. There was one girl on reception who spoke and understood English and was very helpful. However she was not always on duty. I consider that hotels who have English speaking guests should have a staff member who speaks and understands English available at all times to answer queries and provide advice. While our room was grand, it did not have a toilet roll holder, in my view not acceptable in a four star hotel. Also the hand towels provided every day were like tea towels and not acceptable in my view in a four star hotel. They should be changed for proper towels. The bar had no bar counter i.e. not focal point and consisted of some tables with some bottles of various alcohol drinks. In order to get service at the bar one had to ring a bell, which is a first. In most four star hotels I have stayed in bar staff are available to fill orders on request. This gave me the idea that the hotel did not wish to spend money on staff. To which I would reply you have to speculate to accumulate. I only saw one person looking after the bar in my time at the hotel. To end I feel that the Hotel Villa Diodoro needs a refurbishment badly.

We really looked forward to this trip. We were here 16 years ago in 2003. Taormina was a dream destination then. Flooded with millions of bus tourists during daytime, but it was a paradise in the evening. Beautiful bars and restaurants, romantic oil lamps on the stairs in hidden side streets, quiet, awesome, breathtakingly beautiful. Well, this Taormina is DEAD. it's gone forever. You don't find it any more. Taormina 2019 is full, it's loud, it's dead. It's overtouristy by day and night. Mass tourism has destroyed its charme. The bars are lit in the most ugly glaring light on earth now, they are full, loud and clearly overpriced with LOTS of ice cubes in your drinks. I am writing this review on the terrace of Diodoro Hotel (300 Euro per night), while there is a loud - very loud - Russian open air techno party going on just next door. No, there is nothing you can do about this - except not going here any more. Avoid Taormina, unless you are content with mass tourism and constant rip off. It's not worth going any more.