Hotel Relax Torreruja Thalasso & Spa

“Wonderful holiday”

Fantastic hotel very friendly, kind and helpful staff. Amazing location

“Very nice, yet not superior.”

Overall, the Torreruja Thalasso is a very nice Hotel indeed. The location in the small village of Isola Rossa provides a handful of restaurants and shops nearby, as well as a waterfront - so the surrounding area is not just dead silent. The hotel area itself is very clean and well maintained all a… more

Overall, the Torreruja Thalasso is a very nice Hotel indeed. The location in the small village of Isola Rossa provides a handful of restaurants and shops nearby, as well as a waterfront - so the surrounding area is not just dead silent. The hotel area itself is very clean and well maintained all around, with one exception that I will mention later on. The room we had was clean, the bathroom was decent albeit we were not able to close the shower door properly and the water pressure is very very low. The interior of the rooms are not newly furnished and you have to like the style it tries to present. There was a squeky drawer here and there and the door for our wardrobe did not fully close, but that's it. Much worse were the mattress and the pillows, for which you are given two per person. Not only are they too thick, but all over the bed just feels hard. On request it's probably possible to get a topper, but then the bed would just feel even warmer, which won't help when the temperatures are up there already. At least the AC was working properly and not even too loud, but we just didn't want to have it run all day long, so that's also on us. Something to keep note of, is the lack of windows in the rooms. Every (standard) room is just equipped with a glass door, which also serves as your entry point and can be locked. No separate windows to be found, only a small one in the bathroom. It suerly helps with the layout, but it just felt a little bit weird at first. We did get used to it though. The Hotel will provide you with bathrobes and towels for everyday use at the pool, which are all of good quality. No slippers though. If you've booked your room with half-board, you will get access to the buffet restaurant every night, but dinner starts at 19.30h only, which is very very late if you're not Italian/Spanish/Portuguese and therefore used to it. Anywhere else in Europe people tend to eat between 18-19.00, so having to wait until the buffet opens was not always easy. But maybe this is their strategy to make you get some lunch at the pool bar - which we never did. The quality of the buffet is both hit and miss. First things first, it is heavily seafood oriented. While there are options available for both starters and main dishes, the majority has always been fish, octopus, clams, mussles, etc. Please keep this in mind when booking, as this was not known to us and not disclosed anywhere. You will still have several options for cold cuts and salads among others, but your luck will run out at the main course. The meat dish they will serve will always and without exception be cold, because it got cooked beforehand and will then sit under a lamp on the counter. Sadly this lamp isn't doing anything and whatever you will be served, has gone cold. Always. That is an absolute shame, as the cooks and chefs certainly knew their craft and the freshly cooked pasta dishes were almost always good to excellent. The dessert buffet also had several options to pick from, ranging from pastry to panna cotta or other cream based creations to fruits. The only thing I missed dearly was fresh watermelon and the pineapple just did not look very appealing, swimming in a bowl of juice. Breakfast was mostly fine as well, with some caviats. Cheese and cold cuts were of good quality, selection of cereal and even quite some sweet stuff - which is pretty common in Italy. Also you'd find boiled eggs, scrambled, pancakes and one of the chefs would make fresh omlettes for you. Sadly the bread selection did not hold up. Most of the breadrolls were dry and tasteless, the big loafs to cut from were better yet still not great. By far the worst thing about breakfast was the coffee though. Not because it would taste bad, but because there was one individual machine for the full restaurant. Many times the machine either broke down completely, had to be deep cleaned in the middle of service, was screaming for milk or beans and there was no one just nearby to take care of things, while people queued for 10 minutes easily to just get a cup of coffee. This is not just bad, it's abysmal and I cannot wrap my head around it. It does not make any sense why they would not set up a 2nd machine. A little sign tells you to order your coffee from the staff instead. Okay, sure. If you're willing to wait for 10 minutes, as it's not faster at all. You just avoid the queue, that's it. I once witnessed how it took 4 individuals of the service staff to take down one simple order for a cup of coffee from another guest, only to see her looking for that missing coffee even 10 minutes later. Again, this just doesn't make any sense. The staff always was friendly, attentive, quick on their feet. But when it came to coffee, everything and everyone failed. Make sense of that. In Italy, the land of coffee. If you feel like going to the SPA after your breakfast, be informed that the whole area is behind a paywall. While you do find a price list on the hotel website, it's not clear if these are for special programs/circuits only - which they aren't. Access to the SPA is 30€ per person for 120 minutes, at any given point, unless you book a massage (which costs more). So all these nice pictures you see from the indoor pool and the bubbly baths; you will have to pay for them. As a regular guest you will only get access to the outdoor pool (with saltwater). At least that pool isn't only pretty large, but also very clean and well maintained. Sunchairs and umbrellas complete the image and the pool bar around the corner will serve you drinks and snacks, even pizza. Unfortunately the SPA does paint another image. Albeit with extra costs, the SPA feels dated and not as clean as the outdoors. The water was a bit dirty and some corners of the heated pools could use a little makeover. With this pricetag I definitely expected something else. In a nutshell: the Hotel Relax Torreruja Thalasso & Spa is a very well maintained and clean hotel with very friendly staff and well trained chefs. As long as you don't mind the seafood focus and you'll be good without the SPA, you will surely have a very good time here. We do not plan on going back, but we would eventually consider it again.

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