Hotel L'Approdo

This is a terrible hotel and most of the 4 and 5 star reviews are fake. We stayed there in early June 2024 and would never stay there again.
We recently stayed at this hotel on a Titan/Saga holiday.

Heather was a good rep and all the Italian road transport and boat trips were very good. However, it would have been helpful to have a daily information sheet listing times and meeting places for all events. These could have been posted on a hotel notice board or better still delivered to each room or at supper as there was much confusion and Chinese whispers amongst guests.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said about Hotel L'Approdo. It is certainly not up to 4-star status and we would not stay there again.

Our room 308 had air conditioning fixed throughout our stay at 27/28 degrees centigrade which made sleeping very difficult and nothing was done to rectify this despite many complaints to reception and the hotel manager. Other problems with the room was that the key card did not work on many occasions necessitating frequent trips down to reception. Fortunately, we were given a metal key half way through the holiday which did work.

The room was dangerously poorly lit with all lights on. It was very hard to read and dangerous to use the kettle which was in the darkest part of the room.
The shower was so dangerous that we only used it once. It was highly slippery especially when using soap and there were no grab handles. The cover to the shower drain was also a trip hazard. One could easily have fallen and broken some bones. There was no bath. More minor irritations were that the tea, coffee etc packs were seldom restocked but fortunately we had brought our own together with a torch which was invaluable for finding things and pouring boiling water safely. The lighting in the bathroom was very poor and I didn't shave for the last two days as one of the lights had failed and I cut myself badly.

On the subject of Health and Safety, there should be a handrail connecting the room opposite reception to the garden as many elderly people found this difficult.
The concrete surround of the swimming pool had at least one dangerous crack on the side nearest to the hotel which could have caused tripping and injury. There were no depth markings making diving hazardous

The service by staff was generally poor and the senior waiting staff were brusque and set a poor example to the young ones. The food was particularly disappointing. At breakfast and dinner hot food was invariably served on cold plates. Carrots and potatoes were hard - being half cooked. Some items were inedible. My partner is a fishetarian and when I saw the menu for the Piedmont Dinner I realised that most courses were meat. I went to reception and they assured me that vegetarian alternatives would be served. They were not. What turned up was very late and very poor quality and a vegetable burger which I sampled was inedible so my partner had very little to eat. We were pleased to leave the room as the meal had been so bad and was compounded by a male guitarist with an amplifier which made conversation impossible.

The system for ordering supper courses by ticking a menu at breakfast did not work well as the waiters did not know what each diner had ordered. Likewise the system for paying for drinks at meal times. I and several others were overcharged on our final bills but thankfully these mistakes were quickly remedied by reception.

During our stay, there were three weddings and other functions which overloaded the staff who could not give good service. On at least two of the weddings noisy fireworks were let off at night and in one case after 11 pm when most of us were trying to sleep.

At L'Approdo all drinking water had to be bought which is most unusual.

Let me end on a lighter note and say that the hotel wifi, hot water supply and convenient landing stage in the garden for boats were all very good. The management needs a severe shake-up.

Do not book. You have been warned.

Beautiful location and hotel was clean and beds comfortable,we was part of a titan tour group visiting for the week. The problem was the restaurant staff mainly the older gentlemen was very rude and clearly did not really want us there, food was hit and miss and for 3 nights we was put in breakfast room for evening meals because of three weddings, when you asked for anything you was made to feel a nuisance. For three days we could hear the music in our room from all the weddings and on one day they even had another party going on in gardens too. The hotel clearly is more of a hotel for locals so really should not take on groups if it can’t cope with them and catering staff resent them. The best thing though was our tour leader Heather who was amazing even when she was dealing with complaints from other tour guests.

The staff were all very nice and professional. Unfortunately, the building is badly in need of remodel and repair. The lights in the hallway to our room were broken or off so the hallway was nearly black. The room was dingy - smelled meh, couch upholstery had many small tears, and bed was flimsy. We left about an hour after we checked in after finding a much better hotel less than ten minutes away (we still paid for this hotel as per our initial agreement). Overall impression is that someone owns some land on lake Orta and they know people will pay to stay there no matter the quality of the rooms. I feel the rooms are worth about $75 per night and their listed prices are a bit of a scam - would not book again.