This was maybe our best stay in Catania so far. Staff were very helpful in all respect and made our 5-night stay a very relaxing one. Surely I would recommend this hotel to anyone traveling to Catania and would stay there again.

The suite accommodating the whole family was great, clean and very nice. The buffet breakfast was excellent, whilst one cannot complain of the 24-hr front desk service. The car parking service was perfect.

Despite the lost baggage (beware Alitalia!) we had a great stay thanks to the hotel. The staff went out of the way to call the airport many times. The locations is superb. Breakfast was mediocre, but otherwise we are satisfied.

We stayed two nights in Il Principe hotel and arrived on new year's eve. Let's start with the pros: Location is great, really central and close to the duomo. The room is nice and modern; the bathroom has all the amenities you might wish although it is rather small. The breakfast buffet is good as well (though you might expect real Italian espressos and cappucinos rather than a self serve machine). WIFI connection is free and fast.
The cons: AC is terrible. And when I say terrible, I should rather say nonexistent. You see, during the winter season, they turn it off and the only kind of air you can get is a warm one. It is therefore only a heating system at this time of the year but we learned it the hard way. Long story short, when we saw that the AC was not cooling down our room we complained to the reception. They sent us the valley (who does not speak English) to "fix" it, i.e. to explain us that the only way to get cool air was to open the window. Given the level of noise on NYE you can imagine that this was not an option. We complained again and the only solution offered to us was to give us another room for the second night as the hotel was fully booked for the night (which we did not do in the end).
The Principe is a 4 star hotel and they explicitly advertise that all rooms have their own AC system, which is just a bold lie during the winter season. In addition, I have seen that the manager responds to comments on TA but at no time was he there to handle our request/situation. I find this unacceptable and he should be there to deal with the clients... The staff did not seem to get the problem we had and we felt rather alone in this.
I would also add that they never sent us the toilet paper I asked for, we had to find it by ourselves.
Conclusion: nice hotel overall but the level of service has to be improved.

Location is excellent, right in the old town surrounded by old architectures and good restaurants (pretty fundamental). Hotel is quite good. Old building, still very fascinating. Good value, very good staff and large and comfortable rooms. We would stay here again. As in other Sicilians towns even while in Catania we got this strong challenging on our car by old town streets and we had all the opposite we could get instead of relaxing drive and easy parking around. You can easy win this match only on the way to forget to use the car and go on foot.