Excelsior Hotel, Amalfi, Italy
Hotel Information
Recent Price: £172
There's a small village with bars and restaurants within 800 metres and it's a three kilometre descent to Amalfi.
Hotel Class:
Hotel Description:
Perched on the hillside above Amalfi‚ with amazing views across the bay and resort.There's a small village with bars and restaurants within 800 metres and it's a three kilometre descent to Amalfi.
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Rating: 7 / 10
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Distance: 0.5 km / 0.3 mi
Excelsior Hotel Reviews
" This was the destination for myself... "
Submitted By: Mrs R Horsley
This was the destination for myself and husband for our honeymoon last year. The hotel is beautiful, very traditional with a grand main room to the adjoining restaurant. Breakfast is served in another room upstairs which overlooks the coast, and on a clear day the view is quite breath taking.
The food on the whole is very "mass catering" and nothing spectacular for a 4* Italian hotel, but nether the less the service was very good. The staff at the hotel were second to none and especially the waiting staff were of the highest quality and made us feel very welcome - their attentiveness made our stay memorable.
We were lucky as the weather was very good for that time of year which always makes the stay better, however, although the pool area was very attractive it was not very big for lots of people to sit around.
There is a hotel bus service down to the main town which is very handy and reliable. When you get to the town there are lots of shops and bars and there are many boat trips to other resorts and islands including Positano and Capri.
The only thing to watch out for is the tab service, where you can get carried away with drinks and snacks etc and then get hit with a big bill at the end of your stay!
Overall, a very good and memorable stay.
The food on the whole is very "mass catering" and nothing spectacular for a 4* Italian hotel, but nether the less the service was very good. The staff at the hotel were second to none and especially the waiting staff were of the highest quality and made us feel very welcome - their attentiveness made our stay memorable.
We were lucky as the weather was very good for that time of year which always makes the stay better, however, although the pool area was very attractive it was not very big for lots of people to sit around.
There is a hotel bus service down to the main town which is very handy and reliable. When you get to the town there are lots of shops and bars and there are many boat trips to other resorts and islands including Positano and Capri.
The only thing to watch out for is the tab service, where you can get carried away with drinks and snacks etc and then get hit with a big bill at the end of your stay!
Overall, a very good and memorable stay.
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- Date of Holiday:Oct 2006
- Board Basis:Half Board
- Tour Operator:First Choice
When you arrive at Naples airport, you are shepherded into an old hanger the Italians use for tourist charter flights, the only thing in there being a carousel for retrieving your baggage. Which is fun when three flights arrive at once. However, all the bags duly appeared and we went to our respective transport for the trip to our destinations.
The journey was undertaken in the dark, most of which was on the famed 'Amalfi Drive', the bendy, meandering road that connects Salerno with Sorrento, Amalfi being about halfway. Anyone who gets travel sick would be advised to consume enough travel sickness tablets to render them immune to any motion sickness whatsoever, as, and I'm quoting a guide here, there are 1643 bends in the Amalfi drive, and in places it's a single track road, vehicles having to regularly give way to each other. But in the daylight, this drive must rank as one of the most scenic roads in the world, it is wonderful!
Our hotel, The Grand Hotel Excelsior, to give it it's full title, was stunning. It is set halfway up a hillside, overlooking Amalfi itself, and all the rooms have balconies which look out to sea, and with them facing south, you get the sunrise from the left, coming up over Salerno, and setting to the right, disappearing behind the hills towards the island of Capri. Breathtaking.
The hotel is in a time-warp from the 60s/70s. There are nice touches everywhere and the furnishings are an eclectic mix of ancient and modern which is quite appealing, as you soon come to realise that this is not done for effect but for practicality.
The rooms are a good size, very clean with maid service everyday, and she kept them spotless. As the hotel is tiered, the rooms at the top are smaller than the ones lower down. Subsequently, the balconies of the lower rooms are bigger as well. Reclining deckchairs are provided for each balcony and as you get the sun nearly all day this is a welcome addition.
We were on half-board, with a continental buffet breakfast, which was fine, and a 3/4 course evening meal, waiter served. This was marvelous, the food was excellent.The waiting staff were very efficient and professional. We could not fault this one bit! Mind you, whether this says something about where we've stayed before or what remains to be seen!!
A courtesy bus provided by the hotel takes you into Amalfi approximately every hour free of charge, or you can walk, downhill, in about 30-45 minutes, but care should be taken as the steps are very steep and there isn't always a hand rail.
As with most tourist places, Amalfi was expensive if you wanted to eat and drink. A coffee and a lemonade was about £6.50-£8, about the same price as a decent pizza! I can recommend the Grande Marina for a good meal, right on the beach.
We did 2 trips, 'Herculaneum & Pompei' and Capri. The Pompei trip was very good, we had a fantastic guide called Alexandra who was very knowledgeable and knew her stuff, and she gave us a sort of potted tour around Pompei, which is so big, you need a couple of days to really do it justice. Not so with the Capri trip though. You would be better to do this trip yourselves. There is a boat which leaves Amalfi everyday around 9.30 to Capri and returns back there for about 5.45 giving you a good day to explore Capri. We did an escorted trip and subsequently didn't get the chance to have a good poke about on our own. We were whizzed about looking at this and that and kept getting tantalising glimpses of the designer shops which we would have loved to browse in but didn't get chance.
Shame.
Just have to go back again!
All in all, this was one of the best holidays we've ever had. There was no one thing which made it stand out, rather a combination of everything.
But if pushed to pick my favourite thing, it has to be the views.