Fortezza da Basso

Rooms were good. All television channels are in Italian if you are someone who doesn’t speak the language and wants to watch TV. There’s a nice big window that opens up so you can get fresh air however there’s no outdoor space so we personally felt trapped inside the hotel room, especially considering there is not much around the hotel itself. You have to travel to the downtown area (by car- which is about a 14 min drive or 40 min walk) to have any sort of entertainment. Same with food, the closest place we found was a pizza spot that was about a 7 minute drive. We didn’t enjoy the inland city at night, we actually felt a bit unsafe. However by the water at night time seemed much better. Air conditioning in the hotel was great. Bathroom was beautiful and clean. If you’re planning on doing a bunch of day trips to surrounding cities then this is a good spot. Pisa is 20 minutes away, Florence and Luca are 1 hour, and Siena is 1 hour 50 min. Just make sure you bring snacks and water to your hotel room as again, there is no where near to get it (at night specifically).

This hotel is advertised and presented as more of a high class property than it actually is and the majority of the staff is not attentive or helpful. We are a family of 4 and were looking for a room in Tuscany that could provide us with space, the advertised room for 4 is not actually meant for 4, it was a standard room, with a king and two rollaway beds. Did they all fit, yes. Should they all have been put in there and advertised as a room for 4, absolutely not! Maybe if you have two little ones, but not two pre-teens or older. That was our first disappointment. The hotel is not staffed well, they have two bars, but only one is open at a time so the staff can cover both and the indoor bar was never really staffed, if we wanted to get a drink we had to ask the front desk to call someone. Multiple times during our stay we were waiting for service, an employee looked at us, didn't acknowledge us, went off to do or help someone else. We tip and are a polite family, so it's not like we were rude to any of the staff. After being told the pool menu was available until 7:30, we planned to get food upon our return. We went to order at 6:45 and were told it was closed, so we had to pay $10 extra for room service to get the same food. Everything is very dated, the spa wasn't really a spa or easily accessible so we weren't able to use that either. I will say the food was good and the outdoor space was nice, but ultimately we were VERY disappointed and I would not recommend this hotel.

The staff and the look of the resort is top notch! The staff deserves 10 stars. We came for the springs and if you have not been to a pool fed from a sulfur spring, then you will be in shock like we were. We have been to many resorts with hot springs but not like this one. The pools and whole resort had a strong sulphur smell. It was even in our room which was far from the pool. There were flies everywhere, even while getting a massage, flies were buzzing and sometimes landing on me which cancelled out the relaxation of the massage. However, the resort is near the public and free falls/pools which enticed us to the area. For some reason, perhaps the flowing falls and cascading pools, there were not slime clumps floating around, no super strong sulphur smell there like at the resort. The pools should be cleaned of the floating debris more, overall, the top notch staff are amazing and the resort cannot help the way a natural sulphur spring smells or how it attracts flies.