KASTALIA Resort located in the middle of SCOLITI the nearest port and the MEDITERRANE CLUB in KAMERINA BEACH in the Ragusa coast of Sicily is a hotel resort where RCI members pay 48 Euros per person to have BUFFET BREAKFAST AND DINNER when transferring their time share weeks through RCI. This is not disclosed by RCI or Kastalia in advance to your arrival while NATIONAL SICILIANS pay 90 Euros FOR HOTEL AND FULL BOARD (BREAKFAST, LUNCH AND DINNER) PER PERSON ask yourselves how much is the RCI exchange fee paid to Kastalia and what is the cost of the transferred week to the time share owner that foregoes its rental for the exchange's worth?. Additionally, there are no English or any other language but Italian spoken by the staff, communication is null and void for clarification of hotel rates, invoices, programs schedules, etc. All activities are conducted in one language: Italian. Furthermore, the beach is located 10 miles from the resort and has no food or restrooms facilities. There are no first aid station except for going into Scoliti 10 miles away from the resort, further isolating the guests without a car from going anywhere. The hotel has no room service and the lobby bar closes at 10 p.m., after which you have no food or beverages available. Moreover, there are no ice machines or ice anywhere including the restaurant for the buffet service. There is no long distance or Internet access either.
All activities are in Italian, all printed material is also in Italian. There are no tour agent in the premises and the RCI rep owns a competing franchise to RCI selling time share and exchanges.Conflict of interest?
There are no currency exchange and no hotel provided transport to train, airport or port.
The quality of the food is school cafeteria level and the expresso (coffee) has to be bought at the lobby bar since it is not included in the buffet dinner. There is no pool service for food or any beverage bar at the pool, security is absent for lost and never found items. Just like I said KASTALIA IS THE LAST RESORT IF YOU ARE DESPERATE FOR A VACATION SITE IN SICILIA. TIP: AVOID MONICA THE DESK MANAGER at all cost.

If you value your vacation time - DO NOT GO TO THIS RESORT! The first problem we encountered was the language barrier...big time!!! The staff at the resort did not speak english except for the odd word, so we felt isolated and concerned for our safety since no one understood us nor did we understand them!!! Staff were disorangized, inefficient, unsupportive and indifferent to our requests for assistance. There weren't even simple instructions on how to use the phone in your room...although it apparently didn't work all the time anyway!!!

The food is your basic cafeteria style food and not very well prepared! Don't expect bacon and eggs for breakfast as the breakfast is more of a continental nature with pastries, etc. If you like coffee with your dessert after dinner...forget it! The coffee and tea machines only work in the morning!!! You'd think they'd at least serve some fresh fruit with breakfast...but NO the only fruit is stewed prunces or raisins if you can call that fruit...You also PAY BIG TIME for the meal plan...In fact Americans and Canadians are charged more than DOUBLE the price for the food plan compared to the Italians and other europeans who are charged 15 euros for lunch or dinner plus 7 euros for breakfast. American and Canadian RCI members are charged 48 euros each or 96 euros per couple per day...We paid $1,150 in Canadian funds for the 7 days for breakfast and dinner only!!! The worst part was that you could go into Comiso or one of the other towns nearby and eat for significantly less!!! When we confronted the manager Monica about this she indicated it was because other guests were paying for their accommodations as well. When we explained that as RCI members we had already paid for their accommodations she didn't seem to care!!! You're also charged an additional 70 euros for the week for the olympic pool area which none of us used!!!

The RCI building which had RCI plastered all over it...had no RCI representative. The Privelege Club reps. said there was nothing they could do for us either...Numerous phone calls were made to RCI without success!!!

We felt like we were on another planet...Sicily is NOT the most attractive place on earth...The land is the color of straw due to the intense sun and there are greenhouses as far as the eye can see plus there are also tons of stones...They only patches of green you see are the occasional corn field or lemon trees!!!

The resort is not properly maintained with cracking plaster, bacteria ladden moldy shower curtains, etc. There are plenty of beautiful flowers on the grounds and it wouldn't hurt to put them in the reception area, but NO that doesn't appear to have entered anyone's mind!!! It is extremely obvious that this resort is not being run properly!

RCI did nothing for us at this resort...They allowed us to be taken advantage of and we basically ended up paying for our accommodations in the food plan. This was the biggest rip-off and the other two american couples that were at the resort feel very much the same way as well as being extremely disappointed in RCI for essentially ruining our vacations. It was very clear that they do not have their members best interests at heart and we will think long and hard about trusting them again!!!

J. Hunter