Masseria Fortificata Donnaloia

This is a lovely hotel, with some interesting features, making it quite unique. Our first impressions of the hotel was a little underwhelming; our room was quite basic, and not particularly spacious, and the decor seemed old fashioned and a bit sparse. That said, we had pretty much all that we needed, despite the fridge which wasn’t cold and the shower that wasn’t amazing. The staff however were just lovely and helpful, coming out to the pool regularly to see if we needed anything, the evening meal was fantastic with the chef coming to the table to explain each dish, which was a really nice touch. The staff whilst lovely, didn’t fully explain everything about the facilities to us, which was a bit of a shame, for example we didn’t access the gym or the spa which I only realised was there on the last day! Despite any of the little flaws, our stay here was really quite special. The most enjoyable aspect of the hotel is the location and the tranquility of the building. There weren’t many other guests, so at times over the three days we stayed here, we basically had the place to ourselves. If you want a peaceful place to stay, then I would highly recommend it.

This is a charming hotel, extremely relaxing and definitely with a character. Our room (26) was one of the best rooms we stayed in. However, keep in mind, there was no shower, just a jacuzzi with a pullout handle. It didn’t bother us. Hotel staff was very friendly. It was nice chatting to young gentlemen at breakfast specifically. Location is perfect. 10 minutes walk to the beach, but if you need beach umbrellas and chairs, you need to either drive for 7 minutes or take hotel’s free shuttle. Keep in mind that there is a pick up schedule to go back to the hotel, you can’t just leave any time you want. There was one minor thing that bothered us. The breakfast started at 8 am, which is kinda late for us and for the industry standard, but, hey, it’s Puglia, I haven’t met a single tourist who spoke language other than Italian. It was definitely a 5 star experience and we will be recommending Masseria Donnaloia to our friends.

I’m from Puglia and we were here to celebrate my sister’s hendo. It was our first time here and definitely the LAST! I’d put NO star at all for this review if I could. Very poor. Terrible service. We were running late for the spa and that was enough for the staff to treat us terribly. No welcome, no introduction, just “just so you know, you guys are 9 instead of 7 and you are late so you will need to be out in 1h”. We said wasn’t a problem bcz we were aware we were late. Anyway, BAD START! We booked the spa all to ourselves and the girl Beatrice kept coming in saying “lower down your voice!”. We were speaking normally and the spa structure in a cave had a terrible echo. Still she’d come over and over again telling us that, despite we still had just 45 mins left. One of the girls then told her to leave us enjoy the experience because it was really becoming too much. We finished and even realised that some of the bath ropes were full of holes but we couldn’t take pictures of this as they took all our phones and locked them in a locker at the beginning - how ridiculous is that? There are no showers for the spa or shampoos/bath soap and not even mattresses for the sun beds - they claimed they ran out of them. We left the spa and the girl shut the door behind us violently, slammed it and gave us a copy of the paper we signed before coming in the spa with the bit about being late underlined. It’s RIDICULOUS and definitely is not a service of a 5 stars hotel or whatever they claim to be. We finished this terrible experience with the mid manager, or whatever he was, of the place (apparently) chasing us in the parking lot talking about what we had left to pay in a very arrogant and rude tone. We went inside to pay and complain about the service and they started shouting at us at reception saying that we got the service we deserved and that we didn’t treat them well. This is a 5 stars place, seriously? We asked to talk to the main manger and they wouldn’t let us....you can easily guess why. Puglia is a beautiful place but this place doesn’t do justice to the hospitality culture of this wonderful region. Honestly save your money and give it to other people who really deserve it. These guys are a group of rude arrogant people with no sense of service.