We stayed here as part of our Italy roadtrip in September 2011. We were considering where we wanted to go to stay for this evening, as we did not make reservations in advance, and decided Forte Dei Marmi sounded nice and interesting - we did not want to immediately go back to Portofino/Santa Margherita, but wanted to nonetheless stay by the sea.

The hotel was great, the service was friendly, the air-conditioning worked fine (had to make sure all windows are 100% closed shut or it doesn't work!) and the breakfast was great, they have a great industrial-grade coffee machine!

As noted in other reviews, one major disappointment is that you need to pay money to use the pool or the private beach. This was especially a disappointment for us because we wanted to quickly swim in the sea for 30 minutes before checking-out after a 1 night stay, and that cost us something like 20.00 EUR each. But if you want a longer beach vacation, you can factor that into the cost and I think it would be OK in that case.

I was very disappointed with Forte Dei Marmi as a location, however. The town really doesn't have any charm like other places we visited in Italy, Portofino/Santa Margherita/Rapallo/Florence/Lucca/etc. It reminded me of an American East-Coast beach resort. The town is full of overpriced shopping outlets with nothing of interest to see, overpriced restaurants that don't meet the standards set by other restaurants in other towns we've visited... really nothing worthwhile, other than seeing Donatella Versace apparently making an appearance at a bar.

If you are looking for somewhere to stay during a roadtrip around Italy, I highly recommend skipping Forte Dei Marmi and going somewhere else. If you are definitely staying at Forte Dei Marmi, however, I definitely recommend this hotel.