Grand Hotel Fasano

This is a special place. Stunning property, meticulously maintained and managed, with genuinely warm service (not universally the case with 5* in Italy). Expensive but you get what you pay for. It’s superb. Only downside is that it’s a historic property and you need to accept - ideally, welcome - its quirks. But the things that matter - plumbing, electrics and HVAC - all work faultlessly.

An absolutely gorgeous hotel with excellent service. Our room was in the adjacent Villa Principe building and was beautifully appointed with stunning lake views; the main hotel and restaurant areas were all spotless and well maintained and every staff member greeted us warmly. A true highlight of our trip to Italy.

Generally disappointed with our trip last week. See pros and con below: Pros - Incredible setting on the lake front - Meal and service in Il Fagiano was great Cons - The service at times was really poor (if also take into consideration the €800+ per night room charge becomes quite alrarming): (i) We initially arrived at the hotel and was led to the terrace for welcome drink, we had this then wanted to eat so had to go up to the bar to ask for some menus (rather than the servers offer it to us), we then waited a further 25 mins with no waiting staff attending to us so had to order at the bar. We then waited another 20-30mins post food and after we flagged waiting staff for the bill. We eventually went up to the bar to pay our bill. The same evening we went back to the terrace and again were not served at all/had to order and pay our bill at the bar after waiitng for 20 mins + on each occasion for service before giving up. We tried the terrace one last time for a drink later on on the trip and we were just not served at all despite flagging servers over and them saying someone would come back to take our order, this time we just left after 20-30 mins of waiting and receiving nothing. We did not go back to the terrace after this; (ii) When having our breakfast on the first two days, on both occasions our breakfast orders were forgotten about resulting in waits (post reminders from us) of 30 mins on the first day and 45 mins on the second day. The servers also did not apologise for forgetting about us/our orders. (iii) We tried to ask about yoga one evening and there was no staff at all at the reception to speak to, which did not seem that secure given the number of car keys that were left unattended. When someone did come back to the desk we asked about yoga and he told us that we didnt need to book just turn up tomorrow morning. My wife then turned up the next morning and there was no class that day, quite annoying again. (iv) The service in the garden area by the pool was again very slow/non existent. There are QR codes on the tables to call over waiting staff, we tried this three times but no servers came over so yet again we had to flag someone at the bar. (v) We spoke to reception about these issues and were offered a complimentary drink which was appreciated but not really comisserate with the issues we had faced. - The room (even with aircon on and curtains shut during the day) was very warm, you could see on the thermostat it ranged between 24-26 degrees which made sleeping very uncomfortable. The bed was also clearly two single beds pushed together with a thin mattress topper and a visible sag/drop between the two beds, again this was quite annoying particularly when you are paying such a high price per night and supposedly at a 'leading hotel of the world'. - The gym (for a hotel that charges such high prices) is very poor; dated, small and very hot. In summary we were very much looking forward to this stay (particularly as it was a tre