Grand Hotel Palazzo

The hotel shuttle driver broke my suitcase beyond repair, and his response "I don't care”. When we reported it to the hotel management, the driver tried to cover it up by falsely accusing us of using slurs, and despite repeated attempts to resolve this, management never contacted me like the front staff said they would. On the morning of checkout, the hotel shuttle driver loaded our luggage while we were still inside checking out. Our backpacks were over the extended suitcase handles, and he loaded everything as-is rather than removing them and retracting the handles. During the drive, we could hear the luggage repeatedly toppling over. When we arrived, all the bags had fallen over and the telescoping mechanism on my suitcase was completely cracked and broken. I could no longer properly roll or pull it. The hotel later told me suitcase handles should be retracted during transportation to prevent exactly this type of damage. I agree, but their driver was the one who loaded our luggage. We weren't even outside when he did it. In fact, we had taken the same shuttle with the same luggage the previous day, and that driver correctly loaded thr bags into the shuttle. The front desk also told me afterward that the driver involved in this incident was new. Accidents happen. What was unacceptable was the response. When the driver saw the damage, there was no apology, no concern and no attempt to help. Instead, he repeatedly told us he “didn't care.” For comparison, the previous day's shuttle driver had gotten lost while trying to pick us up. When he eventually found us, he immediately apologized. That's how we would have expected this situation to be handled as well. Instead, we later learned that the driver alleged my partner had called him a derogatory slur relating to people with disabilities. This categorically did not happen. Neither of us insulted or disrespected him at any point. We have family members with disabilities and would never use that language. I found such a serious and completely untrue accusation incredibly upsetting. Despite all of this, I gave the hotel multiple opportunities to resolve the situation privately. I was told management would be in the following morning and that someone would call me. Nobody did. I followed up multiple times on WhatsApp, called the front desk again, and eventually sent management a detailed email. Nobody from management ever contacted me. A damaged suitcase could have been an unfortunate accident. The driver's dismissive behavior, the subsequent false accusation, and management's complete lack of follow-up took this to a whole other level.

We stayed for a week and had a lovely stay. The staff were friendly and helpful at all times. The breakfast was stunning! Such a choice and I had a few courses each morning. The hotel itself is beautiful. The rooms are a little dated. We had clean towels every day and they supplied beach/pool towels separately. The town is superb and we found lovely restaurants to eat in and we found live music every evening. We felt very safe in Porec.

It was generally a good hotel, everything was clean. Towels were hung new every day. Friendly staff, friendly staff. Good air conditioning (only downside that you could not control it yourself in terms of temperature. It was a system that ran throughout the building, which sometimes made it almost too cold in the evening in the room). Breakfast quite extensive and good but especially when you were early, then almost too busy and long line at coffee machine of which 1 is always out of order. There was 1 blonde young employee with glasses at breakfast who then didn't understand if you told her it was out of order. She could not speak a word of English and did not bother. This was remarkable considering that you work in a tourism industry, English is the minimum. Furthermore, 80 percent vh staff could reasonably English. Cons: Quality - Far from supermarket (there was a very small red hot supermarket nearby but it didn't have much). A good supermarket like the Spar was definitely 10 minutes walk. - Service not always quick at the reception, several times when we had asked for something and she said she would sort it out for us and we had to come back later we had to chase this again. And nothing had happened yet. This while there are a lot of people walking around in this hotel. After that I helped fortunately. We were the only ones on our side (we sat at the front of the hotel) a balcony. We missed a rack to hang a wet bikini or towel. So we hung things inside but this did not dry at all in the air conditioning. So next day I had to wear a wet bikini again, this was less. What I found unfortunate about Porec itself was that it was not possible to get an Uber or Bolt. You had to arrange a taxi through reception. Taxis are not cheap! Be prepared for this. Compared to Portugal or other places I found it pricey (of course also because there is hardly any competition because there are no Ubers etc).