La Vista di Marina by the First

If you are looking to waste 550 EUR on getting annoyed and hustled by an angry little Italian "boss", it is the right place for you. Lets start with the positives: -The location is 5 stars, it is directly by the port, with the balcon is overseasing both, the bay and the beautiful houses across. This is literaly the ONLY thing that could justify 550 EUR a night. Now the so-so parts: -The apartments are more in the 3 stars direction. They have been refubrished and they have some stylish elements. However, they have not been maintained and the style is nowhere near a real interior designer's level, simply some smart "Ikea" solutions. The bathroom of Room 402 is never photographed, probably because its extremely small. You hit your shoulders in the tiny shower cabin and it has zero flair. The electric roof on the balcony doesnt work and it is stucked in one position, so you either have full sun or full rain in your face (plus if you are over 180cm you cant even stand up on your balcony without hitting your head). The whole balcony was never serviced nor maintained, it was once done and then left like that (same can be said about the apartment). It doesnt have ANY TV or MUSIC SYSTEM or any Media Solution, the Wifi signal is so weak that you can only catch it from your entrance (not in the bedroom or the kitchen), and it doest have a fridge, so you cant even keep a bottle of water cold. The pillows were comfortable, but all in all it is NOWHERE NEAR 5 star and NOWWHERE NEAR 550 EUR level at all. And now the HORROR: -It seems to be a one man show, from a "manager" called Enrico. Who is the ruddest person you will meet. Imagine an Italian BASIL FAWLTY , just without any charme or humor. Just an incredible unwelcoming rude person. He writes emails without any "hi, please, thank you, bye" and IGNORES questions and requests even if you write to him twice about it. (by the way for 550 EUR dont expect any help with parking or getting your luggage down from parking). He refused our request of checking out half an hour later (YOU HAVE TO GO BY 11AM he said.....which is absolutely ridiculous, 11AM check-out is 3 stars, his way of communication is zero star). and He charges for a bottle of water (in a 550 EUR apartment, you dont get a welcome bottle of still water). There are some old bags of random cheap tea, that he offers as "complimentary" but he wrote me on whatsapp that we need to pay for the extra Nespresso capsule (we were only allowed to take two, not 3)

This is a joke, 4 flights of stairs and our partial seaview is of a wall of rocks. They don't answer their phones, ever, and someone from a pizza shop finally came and gave us a key. They have very bad FaceBook reviews. Our travel agent booked us here and clearly didn't check it out. Rooms is very very small, stairs are steep and the hot water for the shower is also dangerous; goes from cold to boiling hot. NO ONE answers the phones either. Do NOT STAY HERE.

STAY AWAY. I had a reservation booked for June 2024 with this property. The reservation was based on 100% cancellation and I was only to be charged 30 days before arrival. The owner of this property rental decided to charge my card five months ahead of schedule for the full amount and refuses to give me my money back. I used *********** to make this reservation and I’m still getting the runaround from them on how long I have to wait to get this money back. Do yourself a favour stay away don’t book with this person. She’s a thief and illegally charged my visa without authorization.

Merchant informed me of a change in my reserved room at the last minute. The room was not worth what I paid for, though it was pleasant. The shower is quite nice. The Jacuzzi seems to be mostly for show.

The unit shown in the photos is not what you get. I reported this to ******* and they have dodged it, you can only talk to virtual agents that reply in circles. They refuse to answer questions. The owner or ******* has entered photos inconsistent with the property. For example, we picked a unit with an indoor spa tub. We received a moldy shower with a bathroom door that was broken, a heater that could not be turned off, broken rope railings to enter the unit up 4 levels of stairs that are steeper than they are wide, terrible lighting, and far short of having kitchen equipment required make anything. The photos provided were from a different unit and the condition upon arrival was far from luxury. This unit shouldn’t be more than $100 a night. ******* won’t comment on if the owner or if ******* is responsible for the incorrect images, nor have they corrected it on their site. Do not expect to get help from ******* or ownership when the problems are reported. This listing is a scam.

Place overpriced. The heating was not working and there were no blankets available. Cabinets door falling apart. The entrance to the place was a working site. Sign everywhere on how much it would cost to do anything extra. Only positive experience is the little balcony with a spectacular view!

Absolutely loved staying here! One of my favorite places I stayed at in Italy. It really felt so comfortable, the bed and bathroom were so nice. Loved the view of the water and town from the balcony. It was magical to wake up to the sunrise and ocean view. Perfect location. Highly recommend staying here!

It was our 2nd village in Cinque Terre due to the time limited. We were very pleased for a second choice of our Cinque Terre experience. Riomaggiore is one of the big villages in Cinque Terre , it’s lively and beautiful! We glad we made it before mid day as some part of the trail was easy to walk but we aimed to see the spectacular view over the hillside then we’ve had to climbed up! Definitely well worth it. Walk up about 20-30 mins. It wasn’t easy when walked up and down in the hot weather! Lots of options in terms of foods and drinks. Well, we had to find a good place to eat then! See you on my next review.

This is a nice modern flat with a comfortable bed and spacious bathroom. I think some of the other reviews mentioned that the access to the apartment is by very steep, narrow set of stairs, 3 or 4 stories. So, any heavy suitcases would be awkward to get up to the flat. But, this is Cinque Terre and it is ocean front, so the reward is the view. Sadly, in our case, the view was obstructed due to work being done on the flat during our stay. It was very disappointing and I asked our contact (all contact via WhatsApp), about the situation and the reply was that 'it was supposed to be finished in early April'. I understand that work on these old buildings must be done but, I told the contact, that, in my opinion, we should have been given a heads up and offered a discount or the chance to cancel and rebook somewhere else. I requested a discount to reflect the situation and the lack of communication. The response was negative. I told the contact that I would need to mention this in the review and the reply was 'don't menace us with reviews that's really a barbarian behaviour'. When your host is 'anonymous', and you pay in advance, you don't have much power. I am attaching some photos. My 1 star review reflects the lack of communication and the aggressive comments. If the balcony had been useable, I would not have had any complaint.