Grand Hotel Capodimonte in Sorrento

This is a beautiful hotel, with 2-3 restaurants and a great seating area for drinks before dinner (with an incredible view of Sorrento). The restaurant by the pools had one of the best pizzas I had while in Italy!

The best part of this hotel is that it’s an easy (no hills) walk into downtown Sorrento. The second best part? The pools! There’s plenty of seating by the pools and they are beautiful all with great views and plenty of sunlight. The views from the rooms is picturesque. The hotel staff are kind and courteous and happily arranged taxi’s for us when we needed to go further than the short walk into town.

Drawbacks:
- Rooms are outdated (this might be expected with the hotel style). There’s no carpet so they are also very loud to outside noise in hallways, etc
- Gym is small and had to be reserved ahead of time
- THE AC. The lowest that it would go is 23 C (about 74 F). It was almost 90 degrees F in Sorrento the week we were there with 80% humidity. This just simply wasn’t cold enough to sleep comfortably. We asked the hotel reception multiple times to adjust our AC and they kept saying they were but it wouldn’t go any lower. We talked with other people in Sorrento staying at other hotels and they all said the AC went down to 18 or 19 C. This alone would cause us to not come back if we are traveling in summertime

The grand hotel had a fantastic location (easy walk to the main tourist area, a moderate one to the port or train station) with a great view overlooking the town/coast.

I was not as impressed with the rooms, they were "okay" with too firm of bed and pillows (the kind that hurt your ears if you attempt to lay on them for too long). They also had a sign posted on the thermostat advising "for best experience, leave it set to 25C." So we didn't okay with it, but still noticed the power flicker on and off a few times when in our room. I'm we did wake a few times feeling too hot, which brought to the forefront the uncomfortable bedding again...

Showering in the bath with a movable half-wall is an acquired skill that I do not have yet. This half-wall did not do a great job of keeping water from making a wet mess, but at least there is a floor drain and a few ultra-scratchy robes to help minimize falls! Another acquired skill was easily using the key to gain entry to the room, but this one I did get better at.

The included breakfast was also just okay compared with hotels we had stayed at in other Italian cities during our trip. The fresh fruit was great, the view from the table (when not seated in direct sun) was pleasant, but I didn't find the rest as nice.

Their series of five pools connected by descending waterfalls was beautiful. A great place to cool off after climbing back up from the port, for example. Be warned it inexplicably closes at 6p (1800). The pool-side bar has an expansive cocktail list, and all the drinks we ordered over the course of our stay were high quality. The food served was also very decent.

As said initially, this was an okay hotel, we enjoyed our stay, but would probably look elsewhere if visiting the area again.