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Reviews of Hotel La Vela

3 out of 5
Hotel La Vela
Corso Nicolo Cuneo, 21, Santa Margherita Ligure, GE

Reviews

8.4

Very good

Rating 10 - Excellent. 51 out of 140 reviews" "
Rating 8 - Good. 66 out of 140 reviews" "
Rating 6 - Okay. 16 out of 140 reviews" "
Rating 4 - Poor. 4 out of 140 reviews" "
Rating 2 - Terrible. 3 out of 140 reviews" "

9.0/10

Cleanliness

8.2/10

Staff & service

7.8/10

Amenities

8.0/10

Property conditions & facilities

8.6/10

Eco-friendliness

Reviews

10/10 Excellent

Giorgia

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Lovely hotel and very helpful and polite staff
Stayed 1 night in Apr 2024

10/10 Excellent

Stanislav

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Very nice stay
Very impressive hotel. Just two things to mention: expect noise from the trains (railway tracks nearby). Can’t be improved. Wifi with regular interruptions (hopefully, can be improved)).
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2023

8/10 Good

Chris

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stock standard
It’s an ordinary hotel which was fine to us as we were only spending 1 night. Nothing fancy, nothing bad. The hotel does have a steep driveway but we coped just fine in our rental to get up.
Stayed 1 night in Jun 2023
Response from Hotel La vela on Aug 9, 2023
Grazie, speriamo di ospitarvi di nuovo in futuro e regalarvi una nuova e migliore esperienza.

8/10 Good

Camila

Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Love the hotel itself but the walk up the hill was excruciating with a suitcase.
Stayed 1 night in May 2023

10/10 Excellent

Isabel

Stayed 4 nights in Apr 2023

10/10 Excellent

william

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Good location. Pleasant and helpful staff
Stayed 1 night in Sep 2022
Response from Maddalena on Sep 17, 2022
Hello Sir,many thanks for your kind review.The Staff

8/10 Good

Kristine joy

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Beautiful area where it is located, and good deal of price too.
Stayed 1 night in Aug 2022

10/10 Excellent

Matthew

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Beautiful building and friendly staff
Stayed 2 nights in Jul 2022

10/10 Excellent

Danièle

Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Simple but so much charme in a castle atmosphere
Stayed 1 night in Jun 2021

8/10 Good

Kelly

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Clean and comfortable
Hotel was decent, what you would expect for the price. I don't recommend bringing a car as the driveway is steep and narrow and the parking is tight. The room was clean and comfortable.
Stayed 1 night in May 2021

10/10 Excellent

Katarzyna

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
The welcome at the reception was limited but over all a very good stay in spacious clean room. Convenient garden, our dog was welcome.
Stayed 2 nights in May 2021

10/10 Excellent

ilham

Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Charming & Authentic stay!
Amazing Service, charming place. Great & kind service! I cannot wait to come back. My girlfriends are had a wonderful time!
Stayed 1 night in Aug 2020

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Travelled with partner
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
A beautiful castle-like building in elevated position offering fantastic views across town, mountains and sea. Good comfortable rooms and good basic breakfast.
Stayed 2 nights in Jul 2020
Response from Maddalena on Aug 21, 2020
Thank you for your nice review! Kind regards

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Sep 2019

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Good hotel!
Pretty hotel, friendly staff, and a good enough location. You have to walk about a kilometer to get to the more touristic area of the city. The hotel is castle, which is interesting. There is a parking lot, although a bit crowded when I stayed.
Stayed 1 night in Aug 2019

8/10 Good

Philip

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
Clean and comfortable
One night in transit quiet satisfactory
Stayed 1 night in Jul 2019

8/10 Good

brian

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 2 nights in Jul 2019

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Stayed 2 nights in Jun 2019

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2017

10/10 Excellent

pete, pennsylvania

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Parking
Unless you are very adroit at Italian road driving this parking at hotel is daunting
Stayed 5 nights in Sep 2017

2/10 Terrible

JAMES

Disliked: Staff & service
The Horrible Hotel La Vela
Do not ever contemplate staying at this hotel, despite Santa Margherita Ligure being a lovely place for a quiet break...stay at another hotel. On arrival, my front wheel drive car, despite being capable of the 1,500 miles journey from Scotland, was unable to get up the very steep driveway to the "hotel". No appropriate alternative parking was offered by the receptionist, nor was any assistance to carry luggage up the very steep hill. We were then handed rooms keys and pointed towards our room....that was it. After one night we were summarily moved to a lower grade room, on the excUse that "the pipes weren't working". Our suspicions that the hotel had doubled booked the room were later confirmed when we saw guests coming and going from our previous room. Breakfast was a joke..hardly anything left by 9.30..despite a 10.00 finish....would be great if you are into tinned pineapple....otherwise forget it. The so-called roof-top terrace is a health and safety nightmare even by Italian standards, is filthy, and offers less than pathetic facilities. Finally, those in charge, who we presumed to be the owners, made Fawlty Towers seem like a welcoming 5 star establishment by comparison.....they weren't even funny. In summary...Would recommend a stay in Santa Margherita Ligure...but NEVER EVER at Hotel La Vela.
Stayed 3 nights in Sep 2017

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
The view is very good. The breakfast is very good. It is a little bit hard to walk from hotel to train station or to ferry station.
Stayed 1 night in Aug 2017

10/10 Excellent

EV, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Castle in the hills
This place was great, starting with the drive up the driveway to get to the front doors of the hotel. If you are driving to this location you will find out soon enough. A brisk 8 minute walk down gets you to the water front along an isolated set of stairs that lead to a main road, Remember what goes down has to come back up again. (it's a hard life living along the ocean:). The staff was great, after check out they let me leave my car parked there most of the day while we took a boat ride into Portofino and spent some time in that area. If you have never been to La Spezia and surrounding towns you quickly realize that parking is hard to come by and not cheap. Again many thanks on letting me leave the car on your property.

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service
Nice old castle
Nice old castle but nobody helps with your luggage
La vela

8/10 Good

William, miami

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
you'll enjoy it
great service. restaurant wa sexcellent

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service
Very friend staff
Greatlcation and very friend staff. Shower head power was very weak, made showering very uncomfortable. The shower drain was also clogged so it was overflowing all over the floor the first day; however, as soon as we mentioned it to the staff they fixed it right away.

2/10 Terrible

Verified traveller

Disliked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Simply awful, Parking was a nightmare-waited for over an hour just to get our car out. Difficult location. Staff and check in was so rude and ignorant. Hotel was neat in that it was like an old castle but felt very unwelcome. Would definitely not recommend. Room was ok. Cool little rooftop place to hang out but no food or facilities there. Again the staff/owners were very rude and made us feel very unwelcome.

4/10 Poor

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness
Disliked: Room comfort
Lovely old castle.
This facility was disappointing. It is beautiful and was clean. I did not feel that the staff went out of their way to be courteous on our arrival, Very business like. The breakfast buffet was adequate. However if you were late to arrive, things were not restocked. We did not have a tv control in our room on arrival and when we requested one, we were told " there was most certainly a tv control in the room." Later someone brought a tv control to our room, but it was not functioning. The area was lovely but was very busy and noisy with vacationers.

4/10 Poor

A., boston, ma, usa

Disliked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Beautiful building but poor hoteliers
The building is absolutely gorgeous but not very well maintained. View is amazing. Free Breakfast was ok. Wifi was in and out. Proximity to train made it very noisy, as train runs late at night and very early in morning, and was not mentioned on the page when booking the hotel. Make sure you are accustomed to travelling in Italy before booking this place. Doesn't have all the amenities of comparable hotels in the US. Didn't give us more soap or tp, toilet wouldn't flush, unhelpful staff upon checkin. No elevator to take heavy luggage upstairs and no bellhop either.

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Quaint, family run
We stayed one night. The ONLY negative was that it is a bit of a hike up the hill, but once there, it's worth the effort! The place looks almost like an old castle, with ton's of nooks and crannies. Wonderful waterfall flowing sound in the back and cheerful birds make for a fun stay. The staff was attentive and helpful. Room was big and clean. I just loved my one night here and would definitely stay again!

4/10 Poor

Charles, Florida

Disliked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Hotel Caters to Europeans who drive
The public spaces were beautiful and great views from the solarium. The ceiling in the bathroom was so low my 6 foot husband hit his head on the ceiling several times if he forgot to bend over. The A/C was very difficult to control. The safe so small it could be lifted out of the closet and placed under you coat. Room keys were hanging by the front door not supervised. Five minute walk downtown and 20 minute rigorous walk up hill. The bus ride is E1.50, however not always at the time we wanted resulting in E15.00 taxi ride. I expected this rate with baggage, but even w/o baggage E15. This hotel caters to Europeans who drive. The staff spoke very little English and I mean very little and made no attempt to understand my broken Italian. One gentleman who worked the late shift was helpful with train information and would not accept tip. There were no English speaking TV channels. I would not recommend this hotel for anyone arriving by train or did not speak Italian.

8/10 Good

Marion & Ian, New zealand

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Lovely old building
An amazing building with a fantastic view from a big rooftop. Nice breakfast. Easy stroll to the sea and town centre. But the bed was tooooooo hard and the shower was no good. Liked the place very much though!

10/10 Excellent

Marion & ian, New Zealand

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Fantastic place
Loved the old building and its many sitting areas, especially the rooftop and little tower. Great views from there. Could walk from there to the waterfront and the town centre.breakfast included, smorgasbord type. But the bed was rock hard and the shower a joke. Wifi only available from the beautiful formal lounge downstairs.

6/10 Okay

Liz, Walnut Creek, CA

Nice hotel, walking distance to downtown
We stayed there only one night and it was an OK experience. Room was clean & comfortable enough. Building is very nice and interesting, although once you're inside the room it is no different than a regular 3 star hotels. Although it is located on a hill, it is still walking distance to beach & restaurants at night. It might be hard with kids & strollers though because there isn't a sidewalk when the hill starts & it is curvy, so t can be dangerous to walk down. Parking was a challenge due to an additional curvy hill in front of the hotel. Stay there for a night or 2 but look for easier to access places for longer vacations.

8/10 Good

Bruce, California

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Hotels.com has inaccurate info re this hotel. There is no onsite bar nor is there shuttle service to the train. Very interesting converted villa, but staff speaks limited english to the point it is a problem if your italian is weak.

2/10 Terrible

Iliyana, Sofia

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
The most disgusting hotel that ever seen
This hotel was terrible, small room, old furnished, torn sheets, there was disgusting smell in the whole hotel; This hotel is not 2 stars, probably is hostel / pansion. In my reservation was written free parking, but there was no free space. There was a woman who did not speak any other language except french. I saw the room and I refused to stay. Also they charged me one 90 EUR.

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Right price, great location and parking
This hotel was perfect for us in that being off the bustling seaside and having parking for our car were two important features. It's a 7 minute walk to the port where you can enjoy all the wonderful food, drink and shopping that SML has to offer. The hotel itself is understated, though it is in a beautiful old castle. The rooms are clean, but with little decor. The staff was friendly and we enjoyed a delicious continental breakfast each morning. Would definitely recommend.

8/10 Good

Drew, Atlanta

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Very conveniently located
The La Vela Hotel is very grand well located with an excellent view over the bay and city .Breakfast was very nice.Only downside was that it is close and above the train tracks and there are lots of trains

8/10 Good

Lesley, Milford Auckland NZ

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Nice hotel
This was a well priced hotel in a good area. The driveway was a little steep but we have experienced worse in Italy. The staff were extremely helpful and the room we had was comfortable and clean . Breakfast was nice , coffee and tea available at all times. The added bonus of free WIFI and parking was a bonus. Would go back if we visited this area in the future.

6/10 Okay

helen

Liked: Cleanliness
not very welcoming
Ok but nothing to rave about. Small dark room.

6/10 Okay

Nino

La Vela In SML Review
This was a very different kind of hotel. Not different in a bad way, just different. Think medieval castle. If that’s your thing, then this hotel would be perfect for you. It is definitely unique and unlike any other hotel I’ve ever stayed. What it didn’t have in modern amenities, it made up for in character and old world charm. It really is an old castle! The room – although dated – was clean and the bed was a little hard. However, the staff was friendly and there was plenty of free parking. It was about a 15 minute walk to the center of town. It was an easy walk going there as it was all downhill. However, since this castle was situated at the top of the hill, coming home was all uphill. If you’re not in decent shape or have hip/knee issues, you’ll have to drive to town.

8/10 Good

confusedcarrot, bath

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Disliked: Room comfort
good value in a very high price area
Apart from the 2 singles pushed together in our double room. The hotel was really lovely. They bend over backwards to help and assist you. Breakfast was ace.

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness
Disliked: Staff & service
Serviceable but no grace
The hotel is in a very nice building with great views, but needs some capital and human investment. Staff were mostly cool and unfriendly. I had forgotten some things and getting them back was an ordeal. It took three phone calls to confirm that they had found them. There is a steep and winding entrance road, so parking is an adventure, but it is included. Breakfast, also included in our reasonable rate, was good.

6/10 Okay

Jon, London

Liked: Cleanliness
Disliked: Staff & service, room comfort
Cheap for a stopover
Basic hotel with clean rooms but do not expect comfort. Dated furniture in a very nice building, but they could have done much better with updating the rooms and restoring the castle to its former glory. The price is cheap for the area, but I expected a little more comfort. Parking is free, but you have to be comfortable reversing down a spiral slope... not recommended for the faint hearted.

6/10 Okay

world traveler

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities
Everything was OK, since we stay only two days. The parking space is very limited and despite of the help of the hotel staff it is difficult to move your car since there are 10 to 12 cars parked in a very small parking lot. To visit the town center you have to walk the street which have a busy traffic and there are no sidewalks or you have to take an stair alley with a lot of steps and no handrails. The hotel is lovely in it's style and for a short stay is a good choice.

8/10 Good

Kiwi couple, New Zealand

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Nice character hotel
Lovely hotel located within walking distance to town. Parking available onsite up steep twisting driveway which must provide some good entertainment at times. Good breakfast and we stayed in a spacious room. Good view from hotel rooftop. No lift so be prepared to lug bags up the stairs. Can hear the odd train during the night but this wasn't an issue for us at all. La Vela is located in the hilly part of town so if you are adverse to steps it would be best to stay nearer the waterfront where it is more flat.

8/10 Good

Euroblog, Fullerton, CA

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Santa Margherita
For people new to traveling in Italy, remove 1 star for Italian hotel ratings. A 4-star hotel in Italy is a 3-star anyplace else. This is a comfortable Bed and breakfast, away from the hustle and bustle of the seaside. If you want peace and quiet, and don't mind a 10 minute walk to the seaside where all the action is than you will enjoy this place. Breakfast is basic, but adequate. Services are limited as this is not a hotel. No elevator on property, so you tote your luggage potentially up 2 flights of stairs. Grounds are beautiful, and a walk through the gardens is well worth it. No restaurant nearby, so you have to arrange for dinner before returning for the night.

10/10 Excellent

David

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Like staying in a castle
This hotel is on a steep hillside approx. 1/4 mile from the water. The view from the rooftop terrace (and the even higher tower) is awesome. The grounds are beautiful. Driving up the winding driveway (and looking up at the hotel) makes you feel like you are entering a castle. Staff very friendly and helpful. Room, bed and bath very comfortable. The hotel has a large great room (with the guest rooms surrounding it). It's a great place to relax (and check your email using the WiFi).

10/10 Excellent

Chris, Sussex

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
St Margarita near Cinque terre perfect hotel just beautifull
Fantastic Staff. Stunning building. A real pleasure to stay at. will be back here. I highly recommend it. Was a little walk from the sea alas well worth it.

8/10 Good

chris

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
trip to italian riviera
great hotel! my wife and i enjoyed it. we were going to stay one more night but they were full.