Grand Hotel des Etrangers

Exceptional hotel in a beautiful town!!! Fantastic facilities, great service, great food (we only had breakfast), great position and really enjoyed the rooftop bar too! Special mention - louiza who assisted us with all our questions regarding Ortigia and surrounds with great passion and knowledge and a huge smile! You can really tell when someone loves what they do! Hope to return one day.

Rooms are not as described on the website. Paying for a full "360 degree" (?!)ocean view, and you are not even facing the ocean. You cannot even open the window because the stench of garlic and frying fish from some nearby restaurant's fan will fill the room. And then you can add the noise of someone dumping massive amounts of glass and garbage to complete the ambience. Stay away

I have now read a dozen of the prior reviews to see if our experience was unusual - clearly it was not! There is so much going for this hotel - but they definitely have some critical details still to work out. 10/10 for reception staff - so helpful, charming, nothing was too much trouble. Impressive. 10/10 for location - absolutely the perfect spot, especially with sea / bay facing views on the 3rd floor. Nowhere was more than 10 mins walk. 9/10 for the rooms too. Although the foam pillows were pretty shocking. But …. 5/10 for food. Never has a 5 star hotel been more in desperate need of a quality head chef. And surely they can’t be hard to find in Sicily!! We ate dinner upstairs on the 1st night - and out for lunch and dinner the remaining two days. They sure made it easy for every other restaurant to shine. And seriously, how many times and in how many ways can you mess up a breakfast omelette? It was literally a tragic comedy. And don’t get me started on their background music (BGM). We care about this touch - but I was ready to throw myself off the roof terrace if I had to listen to wailing ABBA covers on a loop one more time. This could be such an amazing hotel - but they have work to do.

Classy as heck hotel. Everything including the rooms are extremely well appointed. Service is second to none. Luisa at reception was the kindest and most helpful member of hospitality I've met for a long time. Lots of excellent advice on where to go and wonderful information about this classic property. No spoilers but guys who enjoy cultural history and psychology should ask about it. Indeed, excellent service all round! Thank you!

Nice property in the old town. Recently renovated. Excellent beds. Very poor services overall - like waiting 30m to get our rooms without being asked if we would like a drink. Entire hotel has been waken up by fire alarm at 0500am (which can happen) - but excuse at check out or commercial gesture from the hotel….