Hotel Mistral

Quick break organised by husband - worried before went but really pleased with Sardinia and hotel. Hotel bit of a walk from town but quickly got used to local transport and enjoyed the bus rides. Longest we had to wait was coming out of town about 9.00 pm - half hour wait and bus pretty full - but at least it arrived. Hotel very clean and friendly. Room small and balcony at back overlooking residential who were a bit noisy early in am, but preferred it to constant traffic noise. Breakfast quite adequate. Market well worth a visit - just down the road toward front - on Wednesday am, goes on for miles. Not usual tacky tourist stuff. Lunches in Alghero really great value especailly Il Ghiotto - cellar restaurnt near the fish restaurant opposite where you get boat to the grotto - real good value. Boat to grotto good - but don't forget the 13 euro doesn't include entry to the grotto - that's another 10 euro - but it's all well worth it. Got train into Sassari - good insight into their train system - reliable but in need of upgrading, although clean - just looked like they were due to be scrapped! Asked for help finding 'centro' and people really friendly. All in all and great break and only 2 hours flying time away.

bad room on first night, close to road and noisy reception area and the infamous dogs.

moved up into the roof, great room, fantastic view, didnt hear the road or the dogs.

25 mins walk to town, 10 mins to the lovely beach surrounded by dunes. Alghero in May is fantastic.

would recommend the hotel to anyone who is after a basic but clean hotel...as long as they get the attic rooms!

The hotel is nice and clean, Parking is good and its 300m away from maria pia beach. The hotel staff are friendly and helpful, walking to the town is a chore, luckily we had a car, however this meant alcohol was a no-no. I would advise paying extra for air con, we didn't have it and due to the heat (bearing in mind we went in may) we had to sleep with the balcony door open and as mentioned before dogs bark through the night making it difficult to get a decent nights sleep. there are a couple of decent restaurants nearby, and a supermarket and its very easy to find from the airport.

We stayed at the Mistral for a week. When you book, try to reserve a room at the back of the hotel as to avoid the noise from the passing street at the front. Our room was basic, but it was very clean and well looked after, and it was cleaned daily to a good standard. Nice king size bed, makes a nice change from the small UK beds. We had a large balcony with a clothes line for all that wet beach gear. We paid the extra for the air-con, it is a must have in peak summer. It also has a small TV which can simply stayed tuned to MTV.

The hotel is well managed and they can help organise any planned trip you may want to take. The breakfast is basic, the coffee and concentrated orange are better avoided though, grab some cereal and a couple of bread rolls with cheese or jam and you will be fine. There is a small bar and you can grab a cold beer at the end of the day and sit outside, there are about eight tables covered by shade.

There are a handful of decent restaurants and take away pizzerias about fifty meters back towards the airport, good for a quick dinner. There is not much else going at night, in the immediate vicinity of the hotel, you have to go to the beach road to get action.

The walk to the beach is about ten minutes, along the way you will find a great restaurant which comes highly recommended. they will give you a discount if you mention you stay at the Mistral. There is also a decent coffee bar come news agent. The beach itself is all white sand with small food bars every hundred meters or so. The dunes are covered in pine, so if you need some shade and respite from the wind, that is the place to be. The walk to the main town is around twenty minutes along the beach road, many restaurants and bars along the way, so don't be put off by a short walk. We did get the bus a couple of times without a problem. Buy tickets from the hotel before you board as you will not get a ticket on the bus.

This hotel is great value and the crowd was mostly twenties to thirties, so it was good for a decent beach holiday without the rip-off factor.

We spent 9 days at the Hotel Mistral. They didn't tell us about the dogs before we went. They bark on and off regardless of day or night. I was glad to get home for a good night's sleep. The pillows were inadequate and the hotel room chairs were very uncomfortable. It would have been nice to have at least one comfortable chair in the room. However, the staff were friendly and extremely helpful and the breakfast was adequate.

Mistral was a good Alghero base for us. Location is close to Alghero's enormous soft-sand beach but also a bus/taxi-ride into old town. (We had a car - but how can you blame a hotel for public transport problems?!). A useful base rather than a holiday hotel - efficient, helpful, clean, always someone on hand (they DO speak English, by the way), easy parking. Breakfast reflected the reasonable price (expensive island if not self-catering, but we loved Sardinia and its people).

For a budget hotel it is hard to critcise the Mistral. You can get a room there in the height of the season for as little as £50 a night. The rooms are basic but comfortable and very clean, the owners are friendly and accomodating, the breakfasts good. Although located next to a busy road and a building site/housing complex, it is nonetheless a superb cut price hotel which is well worthy of recommendation.

However. Other reviews on here which state it is a brisk 15 minute walk to the town centre, or say you can always get the bus, are being a little generous. It is at least a 25 minute walk which is a daunting prospect when it has to be undertaken under the burning sun. Less a pleasant stroll, more of a route march.

It may be adjacent to the beach but that is little comfort when it is so hot walking on the sand instead of the road is not a barefooted option.

As for the incredibly cheap buses, the stop is just 2/3 minutes away but as for such things as bus timetables, forget it. More than once we wasted an hour waiting for a bus (albeit wasted the hour in a bar) and eventually had to walk as none appeared.

We were there four days and only on one day did we mange to catch buses with no problems. A couple of times we had to get taxis which are as ridiculous expensive as the buses are cheap.

Overall, an excellent budget hotel which is, in itself, beyond reproach but for the aforementioned reasons we might hesitate to stay there again. Use the money you saved on a hotel to rent a car/moped and all your problems will be solved...