Hotel Botanico San Lazzaro

Do not go to this hotel , I've never written a negative review but am compelled to warn other travellers. We were told only a suite was available and given a higher rate as it turned out than was the price and most of the hotel was empty. The manager refused to acknowledge this and we had only an outside shower, the inside one was not working, clocked with dirt and insects. The room was never cleaned, rubbish piling up, the towels were not replenished and they charged us for free bottled water. The meal we had was totally inedible and even though it was sent back we were still charged. The air con and Tv didn't work.The manager offered to refund for the meal but after numerous email requests still hasn't bothered to after 2 months. I felt sorry for the staff who had to field complaints from numerous unhappy quests, the manager would just repeat and say he met us on arrival as if that somehow made up for his refusal to accept the difficulties we had. Numerous steps to try and get air conditioning or room cleaned, the joy of our trip was ****** away.

How they can say they are a 5* hotel is disturbing! I wouldn’t even push a 3* hotel! (Only a handful of photos as we have so many more) We have just come back from staying here for 5nights for our honeymoon and it was AWFUL!! To start with if you aren’t that fit you are going to struggle because the only way to get up to the hotel is by a cliff side list then you need to climb about 50+ steps to reach it. It’s extremely dated, parts of the hotel are derelict and very dirty! No one shows you around, staff hardly speak English and we complained every day we were there. When we went to the room when we arrived moths flew out from the kitchens, there were bugs in the shower & even squashed bugs on the wall! The aircon did not work at all in our room & everytime we went to reception to complain they just tapped away on their computer then said it was fixed, when it wasn’t! We had live wires exposed on lights, room phones not working & wires exposed, the cleaner would only come in the room to change towels & make the bed…nothing else! Plus twice after cleaning she took the electricity key out of our room! We got the fright of our lives 3 times in the morning between 5am and 6.15am when the full bedroom lights turned on and the aircon control panel flashed (the only way of turning the main lights was by the room door which we were both asleep & obviously petrified! My husband said there must be water in the system & a huge problem. We stayed bed & breakfast and were gobsmacked that when we went to breakfast on the first morning that it was minimal/super basic and if you even wanted anything like an omelette or eggs etc you had to pay an additional 12-15 euros and they don’t even have toast! Be prepared to pay 15 euros for a Coca Cola and 15 euros for a beer and avoid the tasting menu restaurant as that’s 400+ euros (a guest told us that). Service is shocking, we also had cold coffee services one morning, gone off milk on my cereal that I was nearly sick. No drinks serviced at the pool I had to climb the stairs to the main hotel to find them chatting. when we checked out today they stated we never complained & that they would have moved us to another room if they had known but in fact we even left our keys with that lady on Tuesday when we had enough to go to our room & fix the problem! Honeymoon ruined!!!

Omg. What a horrible experience.

Elevator and the funicular were both broken. 282 steps uphill to reach the hotel.

The rooms were dirty. We had ants in our room- like hundreds of ants. They came 3 different times to spray and clean the ant mess. The cleaning crew never cleaned our room!! Always left the trash and dirty dishes.

Food was not good.

Management was very nice…, the bar staff were horrible.

I would give this hotel a zero if I could. Total waste of money. Huge disappointment. I contacted my travel agent a few times during this trip. Told her to never recommend this hotel.

What was interesting… locals in the community all said to us… oh don’t stay there. The botanico is not nice.

Rusty. Dirty. Disappointing.