Resort le Picchiaie

Something has gone SERIOUSLY wrong in this hotel. We stayed there with some friends that had stayed there 10 years ago and were very enthusiastic about returning. But then....OMG. :-( First, the majority of "official" pictures here on Trip Advisor are either from years ago or a different hotel (the rooms in particular). The entire facility is severely run down: weeds overgrowing the walkways, EVERYTHING in need of some new paint, etc. It looks as though it had been abandoned for some time and then just recently reopened without any maintenance or renovation. But the service really takes the cake. If I had to guess, I would say the people in the kitchen have never worked in a commercial kitchen before. I was embarrassed for them. In all of my years as a road warrior, I have never seen such a disaster. Horrible food, several dishes literally inedible, half the people at the table don't get half the dishes, etc. And when we pointed this out to the "manager", he didn't really seem to care. Everyone else across the dining room was having similar issues. For breakfast, no one cleans the tables or refills the buffet. So when we arrived at about 08.30, there wasn't much left to eat and the entire dining room was filled with dirty dishes and tables. I could go on and on, but it's really just not worth it. Instead, I will close with the highlight of the trip.....on our last evening, the person responsible for the kitchen (I will not degrade the culinary industry by calling him a chef) apparently cut part of his finger off. An ambulance came to pick him up, and he returned later with 7 stitches. I can only hope none of his pieces ended up in the food. The ambulance crew seemed pretty focused on him potentially having consumed some "substances", but he denied this. And when our group contacted the owner of the hotel to share our overall displeasure, we learned he is actually in Milan, not Elba, and does not seem to be aware of any of the issues. His response, loosely translated,...."well. it's hard to find staff these days." So a suggestion to you, dear Owner.....you can't manage a hotel from 500KM away. Go to Elba and see what is happening there. This place is LITERALLY a disaster. If this were the last hotel on earth, i wouldn't send my worst enemy there.

Super friendly and helpful people; unbelievably gorgeous view. We didn’t use, very nice pools. Definitely would go back!