The service was good and the staff was helpful. The hotel is however in need of some renovation since its a bit old on the inside. But everything worked fine and we have no complaints. The hotel should be avoided if you are looking for spacious rooms but then again most hotel rooms in Italy are not very big.

This hotel was chosen because Sicily is traditionally a very expensive place to find accomodation. However, we had a pleasant suprise with the Villa Kristina. The price of accomaodation for 2 people including breakfast was less than £300 for a week. Taormina, is a very hilly location and the hotel was located on the side of a mountain. The best thing about the hotel was the amazing view overlooking Mount Etna, the islands very own live volcano.
The weather during our visit was extremely hot - above average for the time of year and we were grateful for the air conditioning in the room.

The hotel was small but very clean with daily maid service. The pool area was small but again spotlessly clean with waiter service.

Access to the town centre was via a series of steps, which was great going down but a little exhausting when coming back up.

We hired a car for a week and picked it up from the airport. I have driven in most of the countries I have visited but I have never experienced driving on a typical Italian winding road network and it was terryfying. The Italian drivers seem to have no concept of lane dicipline and are not intimated by bigger vehicles.

If you do decide to hire a car - choose the smallest one avaialble and get insurance waiver cover, as other road users do not place any value on cars or bikes.

The town of Taormina is breathtaking and the views over the countryside and sea area are outstanding. Mount Etna was quite active during our visit but the locals paid no attention to its constant rumbling or sulphur smell.

The beaches are great but not very comfortable if you have no beach footwear.

The main attraction of this hotel for us was the sheer magnificent view of Mount Etna and the fact is was relativey inexpensive. I would definately use this hotel again and go back to Taormina as the local people were friendly, polite and seemed genuinely pleased to have your custom and they love to chat.

Hotel is simply charming. All rooms have both sea and Etna views with lovely balconies to sit out on and admire the vista. Rooms are small but really pretty with nice use of tiles.Facilities were basic but everything worked just fine and we had a full bath as well as a shower.
Hotel is immaculately clean throughout and the maid service was super.
The staff are all very attentive and helpful and all speak really good English.
Breakfast is plentiful and varied but does finish at 9-30.The pool area is lovely with plenty of shade and the convenience of a bar and snack facility.
The hotel is up a very steep walk from the town whichever route you take so should not be considered by elderly or infirm individuals unless you plan to take cabs everywhere.
It is well worth the climb though and is a haven away from the hustle and bustle of Taormina.
Super value for money .
Enjoy.

If you are reading the reviews for this hotel they sure are a mixed bag, I travelled with my wife to the hotel from the UK (Scotland) leaving the kids (older) behind. We sought a centrally located hotel with air con and a pool that was fairly inexpensive. We beleive that we got the right blend although we are tollarant people. The hotel, built in the 60's has all rooms facing Mt Etna which is a bonus, big time, no additional fee's to pay for a view. The rooms are smallish but adequete, the bathroom still has the original tiles on the wall and has a quaint yellow toilet seat and mirror, its clean, the only downside is that there are no shower curtains so the floor gets very wet, prominent in these areas we beleive. The room has aircon which comes on at 3pm and goes off at 3am, we found Taormina cooled down at night sufficiently anyway. There was also a minin bar. The reception staff in our opinion are wonderfull and allowed me to use the internet to print our bording cards (BA fight). The breakfast was included in our stay and although I did not get up every day I found the cafe latte got you going every time!! We also eat lunch at the pool a few times and the food was great every time. The pool is clean, ample chairs etc and shade if required. There is part of the hotel that has not been completed to the right of the pool but this is not noticable. Small problem with traffic noise but this is not too bad and adds excitement to watch the locals narrowlly missing each other, on this note the road outsaide has no pavement and should be tackled with caution. There are steps (59) 30m down the road on the right that take you down to the Corso Umburto (main drag) Its hot work coming back up during the day but it is not far and we can all do with the excersise, I would not recommend the location of the hotel to the elderly or infirm due to this, actually the resort itself is probably unsuitable rtegarding access to elderly. Getting to the hotel we used the bus, 5 euros, took 1.5 hours as it went through Catania before heading to Taormina, then we got a taxi from the bus station 10 euros, on the way back the recption called us a taxi, 40 mins and 70 euros. There is a little bakery 30m up the hill for drinks, bread etc and a supermarket about 220m further on, a market also visits on wednesday very close to this hotel. To conclued, go there, its great, cheap and we loved it, we even got the last night free from hotels.com.