We paid £800 to stay for a week at this hotel on a B&B basis. This hotel was advertised as being 4* with its own "private" beach. When we arrived, we found out that the "private" beach was "private" and owned by another company. Of course, because it was owned by another company, we were then told we would have to pay £75 ($150) for the week to use the beach. I found this a bit of a cheek (to say the least), but when we then found out the hotel parking was a similar amount....The roof top pool which they advertise has a bar (but nobody tending it), so you're on your own up there and its five floors down in your bathers to get a drink (no phone either) It was the beach thing that really made me annoyed. When we had the cheek to complain to the arrogent manageress, we were treated appallingly. We told her that it was unreasonable to advertise a 4* hotel as having its own private beach and then charge paying guests of the hotel to use it!! The hotel restauarant menu was very limited and, like ALL the nice restaurants in Sestri, 90% of it was fish. This is fine if you want to have a starter and main course of fish every meal, but not so great if you don't. So, we decided to leave. When we told them we wanted to cancel our stay, the manageress told us we'd have a 2 night penalty charge for the room and told us we had to get out in 30 minutes or we'd face a 3 night penalty charge! She told us the penalty charge was to compensate the hotel for not being able to let our room at such short notice. When we asked if we could stay that night (so as to give us time to find alternative accomodation for the week), we were told no, this despite the fact we were effectively paying for a further 2 nights! So, if you like fish (a lot) and you don't mind being made to feel a mug (by being charged to use the hotels "own" beach and you like being treated like [--] by staff for having the cheek to complain, then by all means go to this hotel. Me? This has put me off ever visiting Italy again, I'm afraid to say.

Our family of 4 stayed here in mid-July for 2 nights. After touring Rome and Florence it was a nice respite before heading onto Venice. I had requested a junior suite and that was perfect for our needs. The location of the hotel is directly across from the beach. However, since the beach was crowded we stayed at the rooftop pool which was very quiet and had a wonderful view of the coastline. The staff was extremely nice. While there we saw no other English speaking tourists but everyone made us feel very welcome. Overall, this is a great hotel for taking a relaxing break from the busy cities.

We stayed in Sestri Levante for four days. This is a great place to relax after a place like Florence. the rooms were clean, bathrooms look like recently renovated. The hotel has its own beach across the road, but during a busy season like August it can get crowded. We rented a place at the beach ahead of time and it was definitely worth it. The weather was perfect all the time! There is also a pool and solarium on the hotel roof. Breakfast at the hotel was quite good - the crossants were best I've tasted in years :-). Dinner as well was very good - ligurian seafood cuisine is fantastic.

During our stay in Sestri it rained on most days. Whilst this had nothing to do with the hotel, there was little in the hotel to alleviate the problems that wet weather causes. Our room supposedly a superior deluxe was small and cramped. We are a slim couple plus we had our baby in the cot. The shower head wasn't fixed to the wall so had to be held all the time whilst you showered. A superior deluxe room was only a shower- this surprised us. The room was cold (heating turned off after May 1st despite the unseasonally wet and cold weather). This meant we had no where to dry clothes and resorted to drying the baby's trousers with the hair dyer. How about this one - As we needed to leave the hotel before 07.30 on our last day we requested room service tea, coffee and toast/croissants. We were told that nothing could be made availble until after 7.30. Surely this would be one of the prerequisites of a 4 star hotel. Additionally this is the only 4 star ACTUALLY the only hotel I have ever stayed in which would not accomodate us with any food suitable for a baby except for giving us hot water to heat bottles in or warm a jar. That said they did arrange for us to visit a nearby hotel to use their indoor pool to get us out of the rain which was very kind. The hotel was clean and directly on the sea front but had no atmosphere as we stayed out of the main Italian holiday season

The hotel was very pretty. our room was nice (small - no balcony) and very clean (the maid service is awesome). Bathroom was newer but strangely had no shower curtain so... it ended up very wet after a shower. Breakfast was okay. they often would have no eggs or something. Dinner at the restaurant was very good. What I didn't like about this hotel is we were there the last week of May and their beach wasn't open. and their reaction was for us to just find another beach (which were all open already). I would have expected more assistance from them. On the other hand - when we got there they had champagne in our room so that was very nice.