Gasparina Village in Castelnuovo del Garda

The trip began with us arriving at the village around 1pm and hastily being checked in, however was informed the room won’t be ready until 4pm. That left us in limbo slightly but the receptionist allowed us to keep all luggage behind the desk. The first views of the village itself was very good. It seemed clean. We decided to walk to the local Migross supermarket, which is about 40mins away on foot. Once we arrived, I received a phone call to say the room was ready. We travelled with our 2 year old daughter so dinner time is normally 4pm. I knew that the buffet restaurant at the hotel didn’t open until 6pm so I asked the receptionist on the phone where the best place to eat was. She told us to head into Peschiera as most places will be open still. We didn’t listen to that advice and headed back to the hotel, picked up our cases and went to the room. Rooms are good and very basic. Just a 4 hob burner and microwave for cooking (this was outlined on the website so no surprises there. We headed down to the pool, which was open and full of ducks. The water was freezing and the water slides were switched off. I don’t think they anticipated anyone to go in so probably didn’t clean, as there were a lot of duck droppings in the pool. We did see the pool being cleaned on the Monday and the water slides were switched on (probably because it was 22 degrees that day). We decided to head to the restaurant and ask if they served chips or any lite bites. The lovely young lady said we could order from the main menu either as a take out or eat in. Why didn’t the receptionist tell us this earlier on the phone? The menu is good and has pastas, meat options and a kids menu. The only part that isn’t served until 6pm is the pizza. Located in the restaurant is a a stand with some products you can purchase - I would not call it a shop as it is described on the website. The first 2 nights were great and my daughter loved the little play area. We walked to the lake which is about a 5min walk away. However, things changed once all the students arrived on Monday. We were surrounded by over 100 students who arrived on 5 coaches. As I write this, it is 8pm and they are terrorising the outside areas: running up and down, screaming, running up the steps outside our accommodation. I am extremely disappointed that we have been positioned so close to them and that they are allowed to run riot without management intervening. The last 2 evenings have not been relaxing since 7pm and you cant even sit on the balcony without listening to the screams and loud music blaring. If I would’ve know this, I would have not purchased this holiday location. Please be mindful when booking. Gardaland is about a 15min walk down the Main Street which has no pavements, but it isn’t that busy with cars anyway. The bus stop to Verona is located directly outside Gardaland also, much more convenient then getting the train from peschiera as you will have to walk about 40mins to get to the station and the

We arrived Wednesday for a one week stay, and have so far been disappointed. The apartments were much smaller than appeared (family of 7 across two apartments) it is so cramped it’s a struggle to unpack luggage, and it feels claustrophobic. There is no storage to put things like suitcases, and only a small cupboard to be able to store purchased food. Considering many here are self catering, this is silly, as is not having an oven to be able to cook meals! Despite them being aware we are a family sharing 2 apartments, they gave us ones which don’t have adjoining balconies and instead one of the apartments is made to share a balcony with strangers who have taken up most of it for themselves. Terrible planning. Our apartment was filthy, thick dust on handles, dead bugs crushed into the wall, dirty stains over the sofa, bathroom door swollen and chipped, sink cracked, toilet seat damaged, all light switches had dirt on them, and there is dust in loads of corners as well as cobwebs and spiders and other bugs around. I had to clean it myself before we could unpack! The door to the balcony has a chunk taken out of it where it looks like it’s been hit with something. The shower ‘tap’ is hanging off the wall in one apartment. The shelf in one of the bedrooms is broken and sits at an angle. There are loads of dirty marks and stains on the walls and ceilings. There was POO on the outer toilet bowl and streaks of it on the wall next to the toilet roll holder which I had to clean upon arrival. Whoever ‘cleaned’ this before we checked in did an appalling job and clearly spent not more than 5 minutes actually cleaning. The table on our balcony is cracked, and there is barely any storage in the bedrooms to put clothes. The clothes rail for hanging items is ridiculously high up. The air con unit is only in the kitchen/front room so the only way to keep bedrooms cool is to leave doors open! The bathroom window doesn’t have privacy glass so anyone around 6ft tall can easily see in. The pool looks nice but is freezing even in the warm weather and swarmed by wasps. I observed the lifeguard spending a whole half hour on his phone without once looking up! Appalling. The on site ‘shop’ has to be unlocked by a member of staff so you have to wait if you need something, there are no fresh items whatsoever and stock choice is severely limited. We were told by the front desk we could go to the campsite shop down the road, so we did, and it was closed from 1pm to 4pm. My mobile couldn’t get signal to book a taxi so reception did it for us so we could get to a supermarket, they said if we asked the driver he would be able to come back and get us as we wouldn’t be able to call. We asked the driver when he dropped us off and he said no, you always have to call! So we had to walk back in the heat for 20 minutes with heavy bags of shopping! The WiFi is also really poor and either slow or doesn’t work at all. The apartments are severely outdated, and it’s a shame that they