Hotel Excelsior Bay

Title : Be on your Garda! Avoid this shoddy, outdated and expensive hotel. Very shoddy hotel, reasonable location but thats about it for the positives. The breakfasts are truely terrible, one of the worst selections and poorly cooked breakfasts we’ve ever experienced. Same rubbish selection is served day in and out too, so any hope that tomorrow will be a new dawn was quickly quashed. The fried eggs are like rubberised plastic and about as flavoursome as such, so bad they must have been cooked the day before and reheated. The bacon, when there is some, is swimming in a couple of cm of fat/oil, and even the fruit juice is very poor quality - UHT, from a large carton which can be clearly seen during top ups. No option of omlettes as there is no chef for them like usual and no option to get one from the kitchen either - i asked as desperate attempt to get some non-rubbery protein on the plate, but was turned down and directed back to the yesterdays egg selection. The continental selection of cold meats is about the only edible option really. But even the basil on the tomatoes was dead and withered! The room is small, and it is noisy at night due to neighbouring venue. No coffee or tea, not rven any complimentary water, and the mini bar is empty other than for a few bottles of chargeable water. The bed is hard as are the pillows which are synthetic fibres, no soft fluffy down / feathers. Sheets are poor grade cotton, denying you that hotel grade linnen feel that you aspired to find at night. The bathroom is of particular note as a rather expectionally low point. The shower is tiny, mouldy on some of the joints and the water fluctuates between burning hot and freezing cold without adjusting the controls. The shower gel/shampoo is dismal, it fails to wash off the days dirt as shower gel, and could turn even the heathiest head if hair into straw with a single application as shampoo. The towels are thin and scratchy, there is no luxury soft cotton to be found here. Air con doesnt work in anything but air recirculation mode and it is very noisy too, however it does help to drown out the noise from the outside at night i guess. Wifi is very very poor too, only ever working for a few minutes before their router falls over and you have to reset the connection. All in all a heathy 1/10 score would be the most generous we could stretch to. And thats purely for the reasonable location on the waters edge, but it really struggles to offset all the other countless low points.

We stayed here in June with a balcony overlooking Lake Garda. Magnificent views. Hotel quiet, but very clean and staff exceptionally helpful. Although no evening meals, the snack bar served great salads, pizzas etc. However, a 5 minute walk into Malcesine there are many restaurants available if needed. A great place to chill out.

A well run clean and comfortable hotel the staff were very helpful and friendly in particular the staff on reception who made us feel very welcome and valued.We don’t usually have half board preferring bed and breakfast and sampling different restaurants each night but without exception the food was both well presented and beautifully cooked and imaginative. This was our second visit and we would recommend this hotel for all the previous reasons and also the great location on the shores of the Lake.