Ostuni Rosa Marina Resort

First thing to mention is that we booked 5 nights in this hotel (July 27th-August 1st) and that it cost us 310 euros per night.
This is a hefty sum but it would be acceptable for a 4-star hotel in that area during high season IF the service offered was pristine, but you will see in a moment why it is not. As a side note, I'd like to add that my partner and I are both airline pilots and that we live in 4/5 stars hotels most of the year, suffice to say we have dozens of examples to compare this hotel to.
Let's begin with the good:
-The resort in itself is beautiful. It is clean, albeit a little old, the three pools are amazing and the gardens are lush with vegetation.
-Hotel personnel is amazing. They are discreet, efficient and agreeable. This is especially impressive when you consider they are the ones who have to cope with bad management decisions.
-The restaurant serves decent food, at a (surprisingly) reasonable price. The outdoor pizza place particularly. Also the included breakfast is very good.
-The beach access with the little train getting you there from the hotel is charming. The beach bar/restaurant is fine, though a little overpriced (that 25 euros buffet that serves very basic food for instance). You will always find space on sunbeds there and the lifeguard is a nice plus, especially if you travel with kids.
-Speaking of kids, this is a very kid-friendly atmosphere. You will see mostly Italian or French people in their late 30s/40s with kids and retired couples here. No loud music, no binge drinking, no partying. Very suitable for relaxing holidays.
-The rooms are spacious and clean. Other reviews mentioned they were a bit dated but we did not have that impression. However, I would say that for that money, this is the bare acceptable minimum.

Now this is where the train derails:
-Room walls are paper thin, you can literally hear the neighbors sneeze. If you're sensitive to noise, just pray you don't end up next to a family with a couple toddlers.
-All things considered, we would have given this place a solid 4-star rating but there is something absolutely unacceptable for a place like this: Even though it is way overpriced (and yes, even considering that this is Puglia, by the sea, high season and that is is a gated community), even then, they still find excuses to make you pay for extra "services" ALL THE TIME. A few examples: do you want to park your car on the hotel parking? That will be 7 euros a day! (I've never seen that in 15 years of travelling the world). Do you want clean beach towels after 3 days? 3 euros per towel please. Do you want to play tennis after sunset? 50 euros/hour to turn the lights on, enjoy. Do you want to iron your clothes by yourself? Not possible "as per policy" (never seen that before either) and turn to the overpriced pressing service etc the list goes on and on. At this point it's not even about the money, it's a matter of principle. No one enjoys being scammed left and right after paying 300+ euros per night for a subpar "luxury" hotel.
So choose your camp, hotel management: either keep the exorbitant prices but stop trying to squeeze every penny from us with extra services, or bring the price of the room down by 100 euros and charge people for everything, going for the low-cost airlines model everyone has been desperately trying to emulate in the service industry for the last decade.
-Internet does not work in the rooms that are too far from the main buildings (many people confirmed that). Having to walk to the reception to send work emails is ludicrous.

Conclusion: a very good (but not amazing) resort that tries to be something it isn't. There's a reason (many actually) why this is a 4-star hotel and not a 5-star one, and the exorbitant price tag and costly extra services are just not justified.
A funny anecdote to close that review: we met one of the owners of the place at the beach restaurant on our second day. He asked us what we were thinking of the place and we gave him an honest review. When we told him that it is overpriced, he answered "I know". Enough said.