La Tonnara Di Bonagia Resort

Fantastic location, with swimming pool, beach, and restaurant. The place fills you with its relaxing atmosphere and helps you enjoy your holiday. I was happily surprised by the very high quality of food during all supper. Perhaps the service was a bit slow during dinner, possibly due to the high number of guests compared to the number of employees. The staff is excellent and available to help with anything. I definitely recommend this place, and I will be back myself.

We just spent 5 days in the resort. We were a group of 18 in 4 separate rooms and this is my review of the place: Pros: Pictueresque hotel with a lovely location. The pool and beach are wonderful and breakfast quality was excellent. Entertainment staff at the pool were really friendly. Cons: The worst part of the resort is the lack of Airconditioning in the rooms. The weather was extremely hot and the family rooms consisting of 2 bedrooms and a lounge area had a single portable air conditioner and old ceiling fans. This made sleep very uncomfortable partly ruining the holiday. There is also no wifi across the resort and no fitness facilities. Service at dinner and breakfast unfortunately was not great and the front desk were also not very accommodating. Overall I wouldn't stay at this resort again. **Edit in Reply to Hotel Manager Response** In view of the inaccurate and disappointing response from the management I will provide more details. It is correct that after my wife complained we were offered an alternative smaller room away from the rest of the family but she opted for a fan for the second bedroom rather than try to squeeze our family of 5 into a smaller room. Regardless the point is that there is a whole wing of the hotel (2 of the older buildings) that do not have central AC and we were all given these rooms in the first place. We were scheduled to leave on the 18th July on a night flight. We were not offered a late checkout even though we requested it. Shortly after check-out I felt violently sick. I initially spent several hours in the luggage room (referred to as the guest room below) as it is the only public space that is air-conditioned apart from the reception area. During this time the only interaction from the staff was to ask to leave the door open as the staff had to walk in and out of the room. As I needed to lie down I moved to the non-air conditioned lobby to lie down on a couch there. Despite appearing sick no-one asked after me and my wife had to ask for a fan for me as I was sweating profusely in the heat. That evening I had to cancel my flight so my wife booked another room for us alone whilst the rest of my party left on the scheduled flight. We had no option but to rent a room for the night as I was too sick to move. We checked in to the room at 10pm on the 18th but the next day we had to pay an extra 50 euros to extend our check-out from midday to 5.30 pm when we left for the airport for our rescheduled flight.This despite the fact that the hotel were informed that we needed a late checkout because I was unwell. I am very well travelled and have stayed in hundreds of hotels and resorts including several all over Sicily, so my criticism is very well informed. I expected the hotel response to acknowledge the issue of the air-conditioning and seek to resolve it as this will be a major pain point for guests in the future. Instead I received a defensive reply suggesting that they are unaware what a major shortcoming this represents.

Whilst the resort was fine, it was not a great location, the room was very dated and an uncomfortable bed and worst of the food was diabolical. The food was sub-standard, not generous at all and above all not tasty! This does not represent the authentic taste of Italian food and standards. I hate to say this but at times mosquitos were landing on the food which were exposed. The service was mediocre - staff could barely speak English and some were in fact unfriendly and did not seem to take pride in their jobs. This resort is not of 4 star quality.

UPDATE Today we went again to the Tonnara, and we were able to speak to the Director. He explained actions have been taken to prevent the water of the pool getting into the sea again. We had a friendly conversation and he was open to listen to us and our concerns as users of the beach. He told us about other actions that have been taken by the hotel to reduce its environmental impact, which makes us think his concerns and interest in the environment are honest. Our intention with this review was to raise awareness about the situation as we didn't get any response on Saturday. Also, it's is an opportunity for the administration to develop preventive actions around all of their activities. We hope to come back to Bonagia but in the meantime we think that there is space to develop better communication channels with the community, guests and users that share the beach with the hotel. We are not guests of the hotel so can't really say anything about the rooms or other services. However, during the day of the incident the staff was really helpful and concerned about our experience. Most of them speak English and tried very hard to understand my very broken Italian. My husband thinks, the hotel has made a good job in preserving the Tonnara and the history of the town. ******Contamination of the sea by Tonnara Di Bonagia Resort****** Today we witnessed how water of the pool was discharged into a small beach and then into the sea. People from the town said it's something that happens regularly and sometimes overnight. There was no response to stop this situation which seems to be an overflow of the pool (water with chemicals). We are not sure if this is legal in Italy, but in my opinion the responsible thing to do would be to close the pool until the hotel presents a report and solution to stop this from happening again. This was reported to the staff but the manager didn't came to speak to us. This is obviously a disgrace for Sicily and it's touristic industry. The local authority will be informed about this issue but we hope the Resort will deal with this as a matter of urgency.

My wife and i just stayed here for 2 weeks, with our two young kids. The resort is simply amazing, incredibly beautiful and the staff is super nice and polite, and was happy to answer every question and need we had. We simply recommend it!!! Special thanks to the entire staff, who was super kind and gave us great advice on what to visit and where to eat around. Would definitely choose it again.