Hotel Costa Verde

We booked a great last minute deal through TUI ... then checked the reviews! We were immediately worried because some were really bad. However, this is a lovely hotel with great food, helpful staff who speak excellent English, nice room with spectacular sea views. The main downside of the location of the hotel is that you can't walk out of the grounds without getting a bus or coach. On the other hand, there's a bus to the local town a few times a day and a regular shuttle minibus to the private hotel beach. Excursions also call straight to the hotel entrance. So don't listen to the moaners - we recommend this hotel, especially if you can find a late deal!

We stayed at Costa Verde after losing our holiday to Zante with Thomas Cook. It wasn't our first choice and we were a little concerned by the reviews but determined to remain positive. This is a really nice hotel which is a little out the way and it is a shame you cannot walk anywhere from it but you can get a direct bus to Cefalu which is really lovely and we went three times. This hotel accommodates retired French and Italian guests. My husband and I are British and around 30 years old. Certainly we were not their target clientele and we did not engage with the evenings entertainment but this is usual for us as we enjoy our own company. On arrival the check in process was quick, they do ask for you passports and keep hold of them for the night which was strange. Our room was really good, incredible sea view. The mattresses are really quite firm though! The staff are super helpful and as soon as we tried a couple of Italian phrases (ciao, grazia etc they were really friendly, I have no idea where the idea of rude staff comes from.) The food isn't the best we have experienced all inclusive but that isn't to say it wasn't very good. There is such a great range of salads. Not many dishes are labelled which might be difficult for some. You get a bottle of wine with lunch and dinner. There are lots of complaints here about breakfast - you cannot get a "full English" the cuisine at this hotel isn't aimed at Brits, they are trying to run a business after all. There was plenty of nice things, lots of croissants, fruit, yoghurt, bacon eggs... The pool was lovely, it was chilly but that isn't the hotel's fault. Our only real gripes with this hotel was the limited drinks, no spirits and only one decent cocktail. It hardly ruined our holiday, the beer and wine were nice and cold. The other thing was that if you go at the end of season the pool bar, beach bar and outside restaurant do not really open so it's not as convenient to get a drink. All in all this is a good hotel that wouldn't be our first choice but we enjoyed our time there. A big thank you to the bartenders who were really friendly and helped us with our Italian!

My wife and I stayed at the Costa Verde from 22/9/19 to 29/9/19. We have travelled extensively over the years from the Caribbean/America across to Egypt/Jordan and most destinations in between, many of our holidays have been on an all inclusive basis and we have probably experienced well over 30 of these, I have to say (sadly) that this is almost certainly the worst of the bunch. I tend to read the reviews on here prior to booking a trip and quite often take them with a pinch of salt, however, many of the negative reviews are accurate. The hotel itself is in a fantastic location perched on a hillside overlooking the sea and mountains, the weather was superb, no rain for a week, the town of Cefalu is a short distance from the hotel and you can get a bus (at a small cost) to this and also to the nearby beach. Food at the hotel was acceptable apart from breakfast which was quite frankly bloody awful, it consisted of the same choice every morning, scrambled or boiled eggs, tiny frankfurter sausages, boiled bacon (who boils bacon) vegetables??, and the usual collection of cereals and pastries, the worst breakfast I have ever encountered anywhere on my travels. Lunch and evening meals were better although the choice was somewhat limited compared to other hotels we have stayed in and the food was never hot even when the restaurant first opened, it was mainly lukewarm at best, I believe that there was a microwave available, however, I do not expect to have to heat my food in a restaurant prior to eating it. The all inclusive drinks were a joke, no spirits at all,I have never done an all inclusive holiday where spirits were not included, the beer was served in small glasses, we were never once approached by any of the waiters whilst sat in the bar or entertainment areas to see if we wanted a drink, we had to keep going to the bar and contend with the staff many of whom were not particularly friendly and quite often slammed the glasses down on the bar, the vast majority of the guests were French, there were some Italians, a few German and British, the only ones that were all inclusive were the Germans and British, the rest were half/full board, they seemed to get better treatment as they were paying for their drinks and no doubt were tipping the waiters and bar staff, I would have tipped if the service had been better and a little friendlier. All the entertainment was in French/Italian, I really don’t have an issue with this but having booked through TUI they perhaps need to review whether this is a suitable hotel for British guests. We took a trip to Palermo which was booked through TUI, this was very good, took in Palermo cathedral, the opera house and catacombs, well worth the money. To sum up, we loved Sicily and would return, however, definitely not to the Costa Verde, it was a strange experience, we just didn’t feel particularly welcome, it was almost as though we (as British) were an inconvenience, I can’t remember in all our years of travelling having complained to the holiday rep, on this occasion we did but (inevitably) heard nothing back. Finally...if you are thinking of a trip to Sicily then seriously, don’t bother with the Costa Verde.