Club Esse Sporting in Stintino

Our stay at Club Esse Sporting was disappointing. We found dirty sheets on arrival, but the cleaning ladies kindly changed them the next day. Plumbing was terrible, the toilet did not flush, there was a bad smell, and water went into the shower. Breakfast was confusing, nobody explained the seating rules, and we got yelled at in front of everyone. Four coffee machines, none working properly, and the worst coffee I have had in Italy. Having to carry a TV remote from reception was strange. Safe instructions were only in Italian. Not worth it!

Poor Conditions
The hotel had ants in the bed; we woke up with ants crawling on our bodies. The mattress was unusable. Not to mention the other "details":
Rude staff;
Cold food at dinner (I don't know about lunch, as we didn't dare order more);
Pool closed from 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM.
In short, we had six days of vacation ruined by this horrible hotel. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

A Horror Show

Unsanitary and lacking even the most basic conditions.
Ants in the bed, insects crawling on us and inside the sheets, and a completely unusable mattress.

And I’m not even talking about the “superfluous” things, such as:

• The receptionist at dinner was completely rude. They had told us our table would be reserved, but it wasn’t. Even though we waited at the entrance to ask again, the employee shouted at us and pointed us to a dirty table.
• Cold food at dinner, despite reservations, even when waiting 30-minutes for a pasta replacement.
• A rude, disrespectful van driver, who yelled at guests when we asked about the delay, even though we had already been waiting for 20 minutes during posted service hours.
• Housekeepers shouting and being rude because we were in the room during “cleaning” time.
• Rooms with thin tent-like walls, offering no soundproofing compared to other rooms.
• A pool where access was prohibited from 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM whenever the lifeguard was off duty.
• Pool towels that had to be rented and washed at our expense.

All of this became “details” once we found ants crawling on the bed at night and discovered a mattress in no condition to be used. It showed a total lack of respect for paying guests who planned and saved for this trip.

On our first night, after speaking to four different staff members about the mattress and the ants, we were told all the rooms were the same. I went back, recorded the state of the mattress and the ants, and returned to speak to the manager. He promised it would be fixed with new mattresses.
We spent the next day at the beach and went out to dinner that night. When we returned, the “solution” was two single mattresses, just as old and just as bad as the first one.
On the second day, since the hotel refused to help, we reported everything in writing to Booking.com and to the hotel, requesting only the cancellation of our next three nights so we could move elsewhere. Knowing refunds can take 24 hours, we said we were willing to lose three days and at least try to enjoy the rest.
No one responded—neither the hotel nor Booking.com.
On the third day, we called Booking.com directly. They asked us again for 24 hours to get a response, even though we had already waited that long. After two and a half hours on the phone, they finally said the hotel refused a refund, despite our offer to send all the video evidence of the mattresses and the ants.
We understand some complaints can be subjective, but this was not about taste—it was about health, safety, and basic conditions.
Booking.com’s response was simply that we should “check hotels more carefully before booking.”
It turned into an unbearable six-day vacation, when it should have been the relaxing, carefully planned trip we’d looked forward to.

We stayed for three days at Club Esse Sporting in Stintino with our two young children, as part of a 10-day trip to Sardinia. We originally planned to spend the rest of our vacation at another hotel from the same group.
Everything had gone fairly well until our last evening. Our children were very tired, so we decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant — something that seemed simple and convenient. The day before, a waitress had confirmed there was no issue dining there, and we were never told that a reservation was required.

To our surprise, when we arrived at 8 PM, the maître d’ informed us that we couldn’t dine because we hadn’t made a reservation and the restaurant was "fully booked." However, it’s a buffet, and our baby already had a meal plan included. We offered to simply sit at our assigned table (as each room has one) and have two adult meals served — a very reasonable request, we thought. But no solution was offered, no flexibility shown, and no understanding of our situation.

At 8 PM with two small children, being forced to find another place to eat was not only incredibly inconvenient, but deeply disappointing — especially from a hotel that advertises itself as family-friendly.

This experience ruined our last evening and has made us reconsider staying at any other Club Esse property. Regardless of the rules, a family-oriented hotel should know how to handle situations like this — particularly when the lack of communication was on their end.