Torreserena Resort

It's an okay experience. 100% family friendly. Not so fun as a single. Room is small. Resturants are not open all day and it leaves large gaps in the ability to get a good meal. Snacks are available to purchase. The location is far from anything so a taxi is expensive to get around outside the compound. The beach is pretty good and the ability to reserve in advance a box lunch was very nice and useful since all other left to eat at the restaurant leaving the beach to myself. I 0% like that the pool is closed at 7pm. Perfect time to night swim with the amazing light yet I cannot. I only speak English so I did find navigating their "app" difficult to set up my profile. Afterwards it was very informative and I wish I had this information when booking. Friendly staff and organized area just not quite what I am looking for for a vacation.

We'll be back home tomorrow and I think I'm lost weight. A family of four all vegans (and they had assured us that there were options, while instead they are only vegetables) we don’t were the only ones in the resort to suffer from hunger (We also met another family with Mom who had the same problem all week. Now there are so many of us, how can you not think about us?). And in addition, the maintenance is not at all suitable for the price paid. Not recommended.

This is for the international crowd and those who are used to a different kind of standard for a 4 star family resort (see Mangia’s for a good alternative). Checked in today: family of 7, with their extra all inclusive formula for 9 nights, one double room, one room for 5 (3 adults and 2 children). It takes about fourty minutes to check in and even though we are blessed with technology, they will give you 5 different paper cards (towels, beach etc) that are so very easy to lose, but never mind. Bring your suitcases with you and please don’t be fooled by their offer to send it to your room, half an hour later we just walked back to reception and got them because they hadn’t even been moved yet. Next, the room wouldn’t open, there was confusion over the fact that on the paper envelope it said one building and one room, but on the luggage another. In the end, we manage. Rooms are small, pictures are not really what you will find, but they are fairly new so at least that’s okay. Wait, let’s go back. Did I mention, that this is also the first hotel where they will take money for the first night when you book, but then if you don’t go back and pay the remaining fee, they will cancel your room? Ow, they did send an email (no call because my number is clearly english and there would be a struggle there) which unfortunately had gone to junk and only when I got a “cancellation” email from their automatic server, I was made aware something wasn’t right and called the number to sort it out. But now back to our first day experience here. The Beach is included. BUT. If you are paying for 5 people in one room, just know that only 2 sun beds are included regardless of how many people they’ve actually charged you for in the occupancy of your room (again 5). You will have to pay for any additional ones you may wish to have so that your kids don’t have to lounge in the 50 degrees sand otherwise. Also watch out for jellyfish. This is obviously not the hotel’s fault, but there are quite a few in the sea and there are no signs to warn you. But let’s go back. How does one get to the beach? Mm either by walking 20 odd minutes in 38 degrees no shade or through a minibus service that leaves from outside the restaurant. Now, one may expect to catch such service from the clear board that says “SHUTTLE BUS STOP” with a lovely wooden shaded structure etc. WRONG. The bus will actually leave from 100 meters away, where you did notice some people hanging under the trees in what I now assume is a queue system, because they can’t be bother to respect the simple sign they’ve put up and pick up people from the rightfully designated place. So mums with babies will be left down, families will have to wait another 15/20 mins or you can just embrace the italian in your and say “screw it” and also go wait under the tree instead. We’ve only had the pleasure of lunch so far. Food was good, some options more than others, but no complaints. Dessert choice is a bit funny and limited: 2 types of cake (chocolate or lemon) and one free ice-cream flavour (pistachio for the refined 4/5 years old who of course should be more mature than vanilla, chocolate and strawberry). A quite long queue for the one bar location where you can purchase drinks as no juice station for kids within the normal all you can eat formula, and just overall confusion altogether. Also, if you’ve planned an actual family vacation that involved multiple people in different rooms that like each other/or need to be close to each other for various reason, don’t bother asking to be set together. One room will be in building 18, one in 7 and the other in Bari and no one will try to help because customer service is not a real thing over here. To be continued, after all this is just the first day and I’m an open minded person. Things may turn around, as I don’t really think it can go lower ( you never know), but in the meantime how I wished we had read reviews more carefully before booking as some signs were clearly there, but we let the very nice photoshopped images fool us. Amateurs!