Active & Family Hotel Gioiosa in Riva del Garda

I'll kick off by saying this hotel is for a very specific type of tourist, which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but it doesn't deal at all well with guests who don't necessarily want to follow a set agenda of when to eat, play, travel and sleep.

It's also geared very heavily towards German speakers. The staff do cater for other languages but not nearly so well. This led to us not really knowing what was on offer to us and we missed out on a few things we could have taken advantage of. I'm not entirely sure how kid friendly they are either. One of the staff full-on yelled at my kids for spinning round in the chair by reception while I was trying to read the local tourist guide. They were extremely wary around her after that.

The rooms were ok but small (we had a family comfort room) so expect to have to tiptoe around if your kids fall asleep before you. And all outside lights are turned out by 11pm (there are no private lights on the balconies) so, again, you'll be sitting in the dark outside if you want to enjoy a glass of wine after that.

Finally, it's a bit outside Riva Del Garda (10 - 15 minute drive). Again, that's ok if you plan to centre yourself around the hotel the whole time (which seems to be the idea) but not ideal if you plan to spend a bit of time enjoying the fantastic food and events that are available in town.

At €320 a night, it's also very overpriced for what it is, whichever way you look at it.

None of this ruined our holiday - Lake Garda is a beautiful place and there's loads of stuff to do. But this hotel really didn't live up to expectations at all. Pity.