Mondello Palace Hotel

The hotel is a strange build. There was very wide corridors and high ceiling rooms in this long rectilinear building. I suspect it may be re-purposed from a high-end army barracks, municipal office building or some low security institution. The hotel is average and is not fully deserving of its four star status. The lounge, lobby and area around the pool are nice. However the fabric of the building is suffering with the concrete rotting at one end. There is an eerie, disused mini golf area occupying half the grounds. The rooms are a good sized, but are not overwhelmed by amenities. They are painted in a rather unflattering dark battleship grey colour. The beds are large, hard slabs. The wide corridors clang like a lift shaft to the sound of banging doors. Sleep quality is poor. The staff average out around perfunctory. Some are polite, courteous and customer aware. Others are going through the motions - doling out fairly uninspired food without interest. The breakfast buffet is sufficient with a good range of options. WiFi is wheezy and asthmatic and comes and goes like a cat. There is no gym. The key attraction (if any could be identified) is the location. It is situated bang in the middle of Mondello in pole position for the beach.

This hotel in my opinion is a total desaster! 2 minutes before I checked in here I saw on booking.com that all room categories were available. I entered the property and said to the concierge that I would like to get a Junior Suite at 184€ per night. He was lying at me, saying that the hotel is totally fully booked. I showed him that on booking.com all room categories were wide open to book. He then pretended that just 1 room would be left - Junior Suite 412. I paid the 184€ by credit card and went up to the so called Junior Suite, which looks absolutely desastrous! On booking.com there are 10 wonderful photos of very nicely looking Junior Suites. What I got was a terrible room. Very old, very worn out, just lousy! In all my life I never got such a horrible accomodation for 184€! The bathroom looks disgusting with all rust around the shower. The window frames look as you would be in a slum. Everything is run down and rusty, the sofa looks so worn out. Very very very bad and the worse hotel I have ever stayed! Something like this is called „Palace“? Horrible!! All the walls in my room look horrible and are totally scratched! Worse than a lousy hotel in a 3rd world country!! I wanted to order room service after having travelled for 10 hours. No answer on the phone. Then I went through the operator and was told rudely that until 19.45 hrs there would be only toasts. Is this possible in a „Palace“? This is nothing less than a shame!! I wanted to connect my iPhone to WiFi. No way... The lady at reception told me that rooms on the 4th floor often have problems to connect with WiFi. In other words nothing at this hotel is the way it should be! This hotel - for 184€ per night - is a huge offense. It‘s a lousy, run down place from A to Z! Very bad smell in the corridors. Some parts of the garden are a big mess and look neglected. Temperature today was 25 degrees, very hot and like summer. There is a pool, but it was closed. I can only say KEEP OFF this lousy hotel! I travelled to 127 countries already, but it is hard to remember to have stayed at such a lousy, totally overrated and run down hotel! In my opinion it does not even deserve 2 stars...

I enjoyed my stay of 11 nights. I found my room to be perfect for my needs. My housekeeper was sweet and trustworthy. The pool is big and clean. The private beach is money!! OMG, the breakfast, cannoli, espresso, breads, cheeses, pastries, on and on.

From the pictures on the website, I was expecting this to be a little nicer. I wish I could give this 3.5 stars, not 3, as I was satisfied and in general didn't expect it to be like a fancy spa hotel, but was expecting it to be a little nicer. Pros and Cons: Pros: - We got a great price and the staff was very nice (though only one front desk person spoke very good English, but he was there most of the time and checked is in/out and helped call us a cab). -Access to the private beach area was included and we got two chairs, a table, and umbrellas. The public beach area is small, so it was nice to have space. Note, this is a beach where locals go, it's not super fancy, it has a very local feel (which we liked! but if you are expecting the fanciness of the Amalfi Coast, this is not that). -Breakfast was included (but it was just OK), which was good because limited options around. -They were able to store our bags on our last day, since we had to check out at 11 and weren't leaving until 2, and let us go to the pool (we did that for a few hours, then went down the street to a restaurant for lunch, then came back to get our bags and get in our cab that they had called earlier and was already there). -The pool was very nice and clean. Never crowded (though we were there at the end of the summer season, so in general it was not crowded). -There was a safe and we used it and had no issues with it. -Room had a little terrace and a nice view of the beach. Cons: -Bed was VERY uncomfortable - very hard, not enough pillows, and it was one of the double beds that is two twins pushed together, so one of us kept falling into the crack. -I found a couple of ants in the room :( -In general the hotel could use a little freshening up - new paint (walls had scuffs and were fading), updated sheets etc. -No ATM on site (and most places only take cash in Palermo and the only ATM was a 10-15 minute walk to a bank near a gas station). -We had dinner there the first night, because we got in pretty late and were tired, and it was not very good. -The hallways were very echo-y, so you could hear people walking/talking and opening and closing doors. -The AC in our room made a ticking noise which made it hard to fall asleep without ear plugs. Overall, our stay was fine. I think you have to take this into the context of the area, too. This is generally where locals are coming to hang out at the beach, and there are a few hotels and B&Bs around. We stayed here for three nights in the middle of a two week Euro trip (I am 80% Sicilian, my grandparents emigrated from Sicily, so wanted to visit for that reason, too!) so this was a nice break. I did really enjoy the beach and pool. A few things to note about the area: a lot of places take cash only, and the ATM is far; also, limited restaurants by the beach area (there are more in the city, but we only went in for half a day, we stayed here for the beach).

Booked a room with a view. Didn't get it but paid for it. I booked through Booking.com and presumed we were getting what was advertised on their site, that is a 4 star hotel. Our room was very dingy. Bathroom smelt mouldy. You had to pay if you wanted an extra towel during the stay. Very dated decor. Very noisy. You could hear every door clang shut every time someone came in or out of their room. The room they gave us had an adjoining room with a door to seperate our rooms. You could hear every conversation, tv program watched and kids screaming. Towels in bathroom were threadbare and room itself was austere. Very hard to find initially and staff were unhelpful. My husband has difficulty walking far and no one offered any assistance to me to carry my, and his, luggage to room in spite of notifying the hotel I had this need. It was so bad we decided to leave after arrival and forgo our pre-paid 2 night stay of 320 Euros and go elsewhere. The area was aggressive and we felt uncomfortable being there. I informed Booking.com about the misrepresentation of the quality of the hotel and they couldn't care less. Last time I'll be using Booking.com after many years with them.