On arrival mid afternoon, we were more than annoyed to find that the room we had booked, as an upgrade from std to superior, was not available until the following day. The receptionist was apologetically telling us that the previous occupant had a travel problem and had to stay on an extra day. This we found unacceptable because someone else's problem was being made ours,, effectively this meant that someone else was sleeping in the bed we had paid for!! They told us they had no other superior rooms available so had put us in a standard room, which was small with a poor bathroom and a balcony which we couldn't use, overlooking the dustbins. We felt that the other person should have been put there for his extra night, not us. For this inconvenience they offered us free drinks in the hotel for our first night. We did not consider alcohol, sufficient remedy for not being able to unpack, let alone the hideous shabby room, with an unusable balcony. We met two other groups who also had awful rooms allocated - my concern here is that the lowest grade rooms are offered to those who book an 'offer' package. However, the following day as promised, we were given the appropriate room which was very nice, and very definitely better and more recently appointed. Beautifully clean, and a quiet respite on the 3rd floor with a great view. From that point on our enjoyment of the hotel was very much improved. The service in the restaurant was lovely, the breakfasts offered a varied choice. At breakfast you are offered to choose between having lunch or dinner and given the option to choose your meal, the range of menus was quite good and the quality was mostly very good. I felt overall that the hotel deserves a good review, there did seem to be a clear intention to give their guests a good service and our opinion is that they did. There are good facilities in terms of underground thermal bath, spa, steam room, a fitness room which was a bit shabby, and the outdoor pool and surroundings were very good Plenty of sunbeds, I was a bit surprised to have to rent pool towels and pool/spa robes, but these charges were to be waived to us. The pool bar, run by Antonio was great, he was by far the most obliging and friendly and jolly of the staff we met. The restaurant staff were similarly very friendly, Paulo stood out. Mariana on the desk was lovely and the most able English speaker, which is a bit of a problem when most of the non Italian guests were German or English and the other reception staff were difficult to engage if you had any problems. One particular older male member of reception staff was not only unhelpful but quite demonstrably rude and very intimidating, late at night, before our departure. He initially refused to accept my challenge to our bill, which included the drinks charges for our first night (which were modest), and the towel/robe charges which Mariana had waived on arrival for our trouble. Unfortunately he did not have a name badge like the other staff, so I cannot name him, but if you encounter his rudeness, you will recognise him! Finally, if I found myself in Ischia in the future, I would stay here again as we did have a lovely stay. The location was great, halfway between Porto and Aragonese Castle, both of which take 10-15 minutes to reach on foot. Don't be put off climbing the castle as there is an elevator to ease the strain, the views are fantastic. Get a map, check out the 'parallel road' up from the port, which has much going on later in the day. Take a tour around the island by driver and by boat, so pretty either way. Tip: if you do a boat trip to Positano/Amalfi, both of which are lovely, be aware it stops along the way depending where you board, and then again on the return which made our day 11 hours door to door, too long for me. Tip: take Mozzie spray, the hotel is set amongst a lot of heavy foliage and the beasts are there.…