Collina d＇Oro Homestays

When you see the beauty of this resort, you expect a unique up-to-standard experience. And then you get there, most of the staff will be very nice. And then everything else falls short. We drove an hour and a half from Milan to get to this place. The photos and display online showed that it was worth it. The pool area is fantastic. The view from up top is superb. And then you get to your room, and you’re thinking “this doesn’t feel like a $350 per night kind of room 🤔”. We call downstairs asking to get something to eat. And there it goes, the horror story of Italian Villa type hotels: kitchen hours. You don’t make kitchen hours you don’t eat. Period. But you’re thinking “when a hotel gives itself a 5 star rating, isn’t it required to serve food 24/7?”. Anyway, “kitchen is closed” was the imposed reality. So we had to wait. Dinner time came, we were tired so we asked to order to the room. Now I’m all for a luxury resort charging me high for fine dining. But I got 4 raviolis, and a small portion of what was supposed to be risotto, but that looked like army rice swimming in a lot of liquid, with lumps of something on top. The raviolis tasted bitter, and the risotto was simply repulsive. And they priced those at around $80. Please look at the photos and see what I mean. At breakfast, where the staff were more than courteous, we then discovered that the kitchen was indeed sub-standard at this place. The food items were okay. Budget hotel level okay. But that is not good enough for a resort at this price, is it? I mean for me to have a mini croissant and not have another, tells you something about how not that great they are. Same goes for the cakes etc. Sub-standard. We ended up returning the food and ordering a cheese sandwich and fries. Which we then had for lunch the next day, because, we arrived to the restaurant 6 minutes after “kitchen closed”. Even the fries were not great. Can you imagine a kitchen screwing up on fries? On the third day we had an emergency back home so we had to leave. We asked them to cancel the third night, and we were going to leave at 9am which is way before checkout time. They refused. We then asked to pay half a room rate as penalty, but the full rate was too much. Especially that we had stayed two nights already. They refused. And so we got charged $350 for a night we didn’t use. I believe that this hotel was beautifully designed, then handed over to management (or the owners themselves) that is not fit for such premises. And cannot hold the required standard. What a disappointment.