Augustus Lido Hotel 5*

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY – DON”T BE CHEATED

Znayu, shto mnogo russkix ezdyat v Forte dei marme, i xotel vas preduprezhdat ob etom otele - est mnogo gorozdo luchix variantov.

The hotel quietly adds a charge of €230 per day to your bill for 'Beach Facilities' - a handy 35% added to (our) per day room rate. When we discovered the extra charge at check-out (no one mentioned it to us before), we were told by the hotel manager that we were to blame as we should have read the in-room hotel guide carefully. (In case you're wondering, ‘Beach Facilities’ means handing you a towel when you arrive at the beach, leading you to a small tent-like pavilion with a couple of deck chairs and then forgetting about you until sunset.)

As others have noted, overall this is a high quality 3 star or a low quality 4 star which is dramatically oversold and overpriced. At some point the hotel must have been chic, but has long since passed its heyday and reeks of faded grandeur. The staff quality is variable: some make an effort to earn the €330 per PERSON charge (ie a double room is €660 before taking ‘Beach Facilities’ into account), but we were insulted on the grounds of nationality by one of the waiters at lunch who made the mistake of assuming that only Italians understand Italian. The hotel manager (Mr Nieri) is the epitome of arrogance, totally unreasonable and, in his handling of the Beach Facilities fiasco, made certain we will never go near this terrible hotel again. We want to make sure no one else is cheated and abused in this way.