Villa d'Este

This hotel surpassed all of my expectations. My friend and I arrived at the hotel, a little weary from traveling from the United States. We were able to check in a little early, which was much appreciated. They had a lovely silver bowl with fresh peaches waiting for us when we got to our room. We had a beautiful view of the lake. The blackout shutters are the best I have ever experienced. The beds were so comfortable and ensured a long deep sleep. The food was exquisite! I recommend having drinks by the pool. The Rossini was my favorite. The staff were attentive and met or exceeded every expectation. Their breakfast buffet was so fabulous. everything I had was so wonderful. The grounds are so beautiful and I cannot wait to come here again!

One of the best hotels I've ever been. The place is a dream and the service and personnel are amazing. Breakfast by the lake will be one of your best experiences. Totally worth it

This was my 3rd stay at this property over a long time; returning with wife and kids, it would be 3 generations of our family being here. We were upgraded to the presidential suite, which was spacious and well appointed, although I preferred the bathroom in the connecting room 134 which had a standing shower and more standing space. Food is pricey but everything we had was great. My son loved the pizzas out on the terrace for lunch. Breakfast was great and dinner on the veranda was lovely; this is one of the few places that still has music and dancing during dinner and into the night and the piano player is fantastic. One of our dinners was at the Japanese-Italian fusion outlet and we actually liked it. The hotel has great facilities with indoor and outdoor pools (with a bathing suit dryer), a pretty good gym with skylights, and a sauna and steam room. The indoor pool is open till 8 while the outdoor pool closed at 7 in June. We did a boat ride arranged with the hotel along the lake and enjoyed it; we did not think you needed a speed boat as the lake is not all that calm and it was nice having some covering on the boat. The hotel arranged a hike in a nearby village that went up high over the lake and we enjoyed that as well. Service was friendly; one concierge really looked after me well after I got injured during a bicycle ride, and he was good about arranging taxi to the airport which cost half of what the hotel transfer would have cost. I didn't see any hint of snootiness from anyone, and nobody charged me 7 Euros for a bottle of water while I was on property. I've seen reviews and remember past visits where I had some different experiences. The only pain point we had was a bike tour that the hotel arranged which did not go well. The tour went across the border into Switzerland and was not particularly interesting. The guide did not seem to know what time the tour was supposed to end and did not speak English well enough to communicate well with us when we tried to shorten the tour and agree to an ending time. The guide was really poor; he lost all 3 of us somewhere in Switzerland right in the middle of a street in town because we were not fast enough for him and he didn't look to see that we were there. He lost my son once. He eventually found us. I didn't feel sorry because we were not advanced riders and he should have figured that out after an hour instead of berating us and telling us the tour would end an hour later because we were too slow. The tour was offered as a beginner's tour. I fell at the Swiss border and I don't think he was around to notice and didn't offer any first aid when we returned to his garage. I don't know if this was just a bad guide or a bad tour, but the hotel was really decent about it and didn't charge us for the tour. But hotels are supposed to vet these operators, and I suppose they were not happy about it either. A few tips: there is a flea market in town on Wednesday mornings. You can buy nice women's