Ironically, the problem with this holiday was another holiday we went on the year before. In 2010 we spent 2 weeks at Forte Village in Sardinia and after researching Acacia Resort we kind of assumed that it’ll be very similar (also 4-star, with its own private beach, self-contained, half-board etc.). We were proved wrong as it wasn’t nearly as brilliant as what we had experienced the year before.
The problem with this hotel, as one of the couples we met there very accurately pointed out, is that it seems to be “almost there” but unfortunately just not quite reaching the expected level of standard. Best description would be probably “mediocre hotel, with lots of unrealised potential”.
A bit of background: we are a family of three – late-20s, mid-30s, and a 2-year old, so were looking for a child-friendly hotel, with a beach, within 3 hour flight distance from London. Acacia seemed to meet all those requirements. Here’s what we liked about the hotel: security – to get in to the grounds one has to ring intercom to reception, otherwise, the big gate stays shut; our room, in the main building, was modern and clean, with a big balcony/patio; the bed was ok, big enough for 3 of us (although I personally hate the two doubles pushed together as you can always feel the gap in between regardless of how tightly they’re pushed together); air conditioning worked ok, more or less; shower had a good water pressure… To be honest, here I’m running out of things we liked at Acacia.
Now about what it is that didn’t quite “make” it for us. I guess in some ways our mood for the whole stay was determined by the first impression of the hotel. I’ll try to explain. First thing that caught our attention as we entered the lobby area was bouquets of beautiful flowers, which upon closer inspection turned out to be plastic. I am not a stickler for fine china, decantered wine and linen napkins with napkin rings but I think it’s odd that a hotel would go for plastic flowers when it’s 25 degrees outside and it’s pretty much still summer. And you are in Sicily. But oh well, plastic flowers on their own are unlikely to ruin anyone’s holiday. Then we made it to reception and were greeted by a chap wearing what seemed like an un-ironed shirt, i.e. it looked as if he just took it out of the drier. Again, I am not a tight-lipped Brit who can be offended by a wrinkled shirt, honestly I wouldn’t care if he wore a t-shirt and shorts – however, the first impression I got was that he just didn’t care what he looked like. That was later confirmed by other staff: they are all perfectly polite (unlike some previous comments that said the staff was rude. No one was rude to us.) – they just don’t care. One other example of this “couldn’t care less” attitude: in September in Sicily you can buy watermelons pretty much everywhere – there are lorries selling them alongside any major road. At dinner buffet (more about food later) on some tables they had these watermelons carved into shapes as decoration. I thought, “hmm, surely they probably have some watermelons they could serve at dinner as well”. I asked a passing waiter: “excuse me, do you have any watermelon?” “No.” And what about this one here?” “It’s a decoration” and with that he walked off. Ok, I guess that means “no”. (Later on I spotted a German granny with a big chunk of watermelon on her plate – she just ripped the “decoration” apart. Good thinking, I should’ve done the same!). And these are small instances (there are many other ones I could describe here but won’t), which, as and in themselves, will never ruin a holiday, but added together they do give a bad impression.
Moving on. As I said before, proximity of beach was a key decision factor and the hotel’s website seems to suggest they have one. The reality is this: there is no beach. There is access to water, but no beach as such. “The beach” is big and small rocks, which are impossible to navigate (especially with a 2-year old in tow) to safely get into water. Seriously. I’ve been to Crete where some beaches are rocky, but there I could walk on those rocks. Here – it’s like an obstacle course in the army. What doesn’t make sense is that when you look left or right, along the coast, some 200 yards away you can see perfectly sandy beaches. Acacia’s beach looks like someone intentionally dumped dozens of lorries of rocks on it. I’m sure it’s not the case, but that’s what it looks like. So, word of advice: if beach is important to you Acacia doesn’t have one.
One other thing – “the beach” is littered with rubbish – cigarette butts, candy wrappers, just plain rubbish (see pics). The biggest surprise came when my missus spotted two used condoms among the rocks. I am not kidding! And that’s another example of this “almost there but not quite there” impression: all it takes is send one member of staff, every morning, to the beach, with an empty bucket and rubber gloves to clean all visible rubbish, like they do at other hotels we stayed at. It can be done in 30 minutes tops. Clean beach, no condoms to step into, everyone’s happy. But they just don’t care. (surprisingly, public beach at Cefalu is spotless clean. And that’s public beach, not one belonging to a hotel.)
The hotel also has a swimming pool – a huge one, clean, and nicely maintained. However, we found the pool too cold. As in: you can get in and swim, but not really enjoy it. It felt at least three degrees cooler than the sea. I am not saying I am expecting a heated pool in the summer but still couldn’t understand how they managed to get water colder than air or sea temperature. However, that’s our subjective opinion and maybe others didn’t think so.
As you can probably imagine our mood soured by then and we were starting to find faults with everything. And that was only 2 hours after we arrived!
What we found strange is that you were expected to pay for beach towels: 3 euro per towel, every time you take one (although, in all fairness, they didn’t charge us when we were checking out. I did kind of make my opinion on it heard though), so 9 euro for a family of three whenever you want to go for a dip. It’s annoying, really, and we never came across it at other hotels we stayed in (they take a deposit in Dubai, for example, but that only to make sure you bring the towel back).
Now on to food. We had half-board and again our expectations were pre-determined by our experience at Forte Village the year before, where every meal was absolutely amazing, same half board though. Breakfast was… just poor, really: scrambled eggs artificial and gooey, a few plates of ham and cheese, warm yet stale croissants (it’s possible if you put croissants on a warm plate and keep them there for a while), mostly tinned fruit (pineapple rings, peaches in syrup)... Overall, not much choice of breakfast options and really uninspiring (is it again the lack of care?). And coffee – what I love about Italy is that you can get a great cup of espresso pretty much anywhere – except for breakfast at Acacia. A few travellers reported on a Nestle coffee machine and rubbish coffee it produces – I testify to that. And that’s a big let-down not to have a good cup of coffee at breakfast.
Dinner was hit and miss: a few times they did roasted fish and that was brilliant. A few times they did roast beef and that was just dry and bland. Overall, however, dinner wasn’t bad – we could always find something we liked. Plus they usually had a good selection of deserts. You have to pay for water though, which was news to me that half-board means only providing food at dinner, not even water included. So, it’s like a dinner surcharge you should expect to pay. In our experience we never came across it before (obviously paying for water when ordering a la carte, but not when on a half board basis), but maybe we had just been lucky and that’s a common practice we were not familiar with.
Kids Club wasn’t much of a kids’ club. It looked like a playground at a family house where kids had long gone – a bit shabby and unkempt. What caught our attention was a big shapeless mass of rubber in the corner. A few days later that transformed into a bouncy castle, except no one really cared to even splash it over with a water hose to wash off grime and mud that accumulated there over weeks (or months? years?...) It looked filthy so we didn’t let our daughter have a go at it. (see a pic)
Finally, and that probably is explained by the time of the year (last week of September), it felt like 95% of guests were pensioners from Germany and Russia. Lovely grandmas and grandpas who our daughter loved to flirt with but hardly any other couples with kids (or just young people) we could meet. What’s great though is that we refreshed our knowledge of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, who seemed to be on a permanently playing soundtrack during dinners.
In summary, we didn’t have an awful stay. Nothing went terribly wrong. There were no major accidents. It was just boring, uninspiring and definitely not memorable. As one traveller in previous posts said a car is essential; otherwise, we’d have gone mad from boredom if we had to stay at Acacia Resort for seven days straight. We’ll definitely be back to Sicily, not to this hotel though.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
