Ares Hotel in San Giovanni la Punta

Worst hotel I've ever stayed at. Let's start. I didn't even book a reservation here, but in another hotel, and when the other hotel cancelled, booking offered me this as a solution. When I reached the hotel, I realized it was far away from everything in Catania, first bad point for the hotel. They gave me the room, and I decided to go and take a nap. In the sheets of the bed there was something similar to a cockroach. The toilet didn't flush correctly. I went to the hall to ask for a room swap or some kind of solution but they did nothing. First night at the hotel: The hotel had a discotheque next to my room (They didn't warn about it) and I didn't get a single minute of sleep until 3 am, and at 6.50 am the light was entering through the window, as my room did not have blinds for some reason. The AC is broken, still working, but broken and with poor appeareance. So, after 3h 50m of sleep I decide to take a shower to wake up and my surprise is something I hadn't realized. The shower looks like it is 50 years old, and the shower screen is broken, so part of the water is spoiling out of the shower. I wait 3 minutes for the water to heat, but it doesn't. No hot water. Great.... At least I cannot say I left that horrible shower asleep. I go down to have breakfast and I found bread that is at least 3 days old. Seriously? I really don't get how this hotel is 3-star rated....

I rarely give a place one star but this is was one of the worse stays I’ve ever had. The room was very dirty- the toilet and shower were filthy. The only (seemingly) clean part of the room were the bed sheets. We stayed for 4 nights and for 2 out of those 4 the hotel had loud music right outside our room until 2 am! So loud you could make out all the lyrics- we could not sleep. I’ll add that we didn’t even stay on a Friday or Saturday.. and of course the front desk did not have earplugs. The food was also not very fresh/good. The only good part of the stay was that the staff was really friendly, but sadly I would not recommend.

I am convinced that any good opinions about this hotel were written by the personnel or the owners, because the real experience is horrible.

This is not a three star hotel. For the good things - the rooms were apparently cleaned every day, the towels changed every two days, the personnel was mostly nice. The standard leaves much to be desired, the rooms are sad, barely furnished and honestly do look a little bit like prison cells. Everything is old, used and desperately need some maintenance.

The breakfasts are very slim, there is not enough food for everyone and once the yoghurts / ham / cheeses / etc are cleared out there is no new food brought to the dining area. We came to eat at 7:20 (the breakfast starts at 7) are there was barely anything for us to eat. Once our group’s guide brought this to the hotel’s attention, she had to suffer agressive comments about how the guests are “taking too much food on their plates” and hence there is none left for the rest.

Speaking of aggression, one night during dinner two men came shouting for the guide - I assume they were the owners of the hotel? - and started to argue with her loudly, coming for the guests as well. This was unprofessional at best and threatening at worst, as without some mediation from the guide’s side things could have gotten out of hand.

There is loud music almost every night, making is impossible to sleep.

All in all please choose literally any other place over this one.

Rooms we stayed in were not very clean and cheaply furnished. For breakfast they served the worst coffee I have ever had. When we paid, they told us their internet was down so that we had to pay in cash. They also did not give us a receipt.