We stayed in La Calette in Oct 2011 as part of a 2 week trip to Sicily, driving around the island, staying in a total of 3 hotels. La Calette was not in our original choice of hotel bookings; after arriving at an alternative hotel outside of Cefalu (Castlebuono) we decided that it was just too far away from Cefalu and so set about finding a last minute alternative hotel for 4 nights. La Calette was the first we came across and it ‘fit the bill’ for what we needed – usually we spend a lot of time researching hotels and checking reviews on TA but we didn’t have this luxury in this instance.
Despite not being our more usual choice of hotel (normally a smaller boutique hotel), it was perfectly fine: a good pool, the added bonus of a nice private pool area (no sand), and a varied breakfast. The free dinner on the evening of your arrival was a welcome extra – good food. The hotel was a little tired; apparently it was the ‘place to be’ in the 80’s and I think it may have ‘rested on its laurels’ ever since – could do with an update. It is within walking distance of Cefalu centre, although part of it is on a road (and the Silician driving skills leave a lot to be desired). It’s not a particularly picturesque stroll. It is also right next to a rail line but this wasn’t a concern (trains stop running during the night).
The main reason for our low review is due to one incident which underlined the hotels poor attitude to customer service: our room was not cleaned for the entire duration of our stay (and wasn’t particularly clean on arrival). On the first day, we were using the room before a 7 hour outing to Palermo. Instead of the cleaners coming back in 30 minutes we were handed fresh towels. This wasn’t a problem at all and we didn’t mind forgoing one clean. The next day there was no clean. We couldn’t understand why but thought it might be an every other day clean. We gave the benefit of the doubt and assumed it would be cleaned the next day – it wasn’t (and, again, we were out all day visiting Tyndaris). So, on return to the hotel we raised the issue with reception. We were simply given the dismissive response that the “cleaners always clean the room everyday”...which they obviously hadn’t (!) and that they would like to first speak with the cleaner in the morning – the morning of which we were due to check out and leave. At checkout the next morning, we enquired as to whether they had spoken with the cleaner. We were informed firstly that the cleaner had cleaned on the first day, not cleaned on the second day (because they thought we were in the room), and had cleaned on the third day. We noted that this simply wasn’t true (we were even out of toilet paper by the last day!). Again, we just got the reply that the “cleaners always clean the room everyday”. After further questioning the receptionist called in the cleaner which, I believe was particularly inappropriate. The cleaner was questioned in front of us and both proceeded to have a long conversation in Italian. We were told that the cleaner had reported that on the second and third day she couldn’t get into the room because it was locked. This was clearly a very odd reason. When queried further the story changed to the cleaner not entering the room because she believed that we were in there – this had not been the attitude on the first day when she came in and handed us towels. Another guest, who happened to be Italian, tried to get to the bottom of this mystery by acting as translator. The mystery was never solved.
This left a bitter taste on the visit. Had it not been for this incident, then we would have given a perfectly average/adequate review. The crux of the problem was that after all of the above we weren’t ever given an apology (the staff were ‘never in the wrong’) despite paying for the full hotel service – cleaning included. An apology would have gone a long way.
- Le Calette Hotel
- Le Calette Cefalu
