"I really wanted to give Porto Drach 5 stars. Overall, it is a lovely, comfortable place to stay, offering wonderful views of the harbour, and the staff were uniformly friendly and helpful. There is also a decent pool, a well-maintained, if small, gym and a good hotel restaurant, and the town centre and beach are only a short walk away.
However, basing the review on our personal experience of staying in the room we were allocated, I can't go beyond 4/5. We stayed 8 nights in a studio apartment with balcony and harbour view. It was large enough, and mostly reasonably well-equipped. The basics mostly worked well - comfortable beds, quiet, unobtrusive aircon, lots of wardrobe space and a big bathroom with two basins and a decent shower. And it was cleaned very thoroughly every day.
However, we did have a few issues. At first glance the kitchen appeared to have good cupboard space, but in fact a fair bit of it was wasted. One of the larger cupboard doors opened onto a blank white board with no storage space at all, while another revealed a rack designed to hold crockery, but which had rusted badly, to the point where most of the plates and bowls were instead placed rather unsuitably in a drawer, the remainder being squeezed into less convenient top-level cupboards. As other reviewers have noted, almost no basic supplies were provided. Other than standard utensils and tableware, there was a small tea towel, a small cloth and a tiny bottle of washing up liquid. And that was it.
Also, the beds were placed in a space where a bedside table could only be fitted on one side. And, although the side without a table had a power socket, the other did not. Given the amount of space overall, this failure to provide these basic facilities on both sides was a pity.
Worst of all, despite staying for 8 nights, we were given Room 101. It wasn't quite as bad as a reading of Orwell might suggest, but it was a bit of a disappointment. It was at the lowest of the four levels where rooms in our category can be situated, we discovered later. Furthermore, our balcony looked directly out over the restaurant dining area, one floor below. And a flight of stairs between the restaurant and reception passed so close that we could clearly see and could almost reach out and touch everybody walking up and down when we were sitting on our balcony, and if they looked up only slightly, they could look straight at us. Since this is one of the main routes through the hotel, there was sometimes a constant stream of uninvited visitors of this kind. We still had a great view of the harbour but our enjoyment of it was a bit tarnished.
It is of course true that we should have done our research in advance and requested a better room (as we normally try to do). And we could have complained on arrival and asked to move. However, by the time we realised the particular disadvantages of our position in the building, we had already unpacked everything and settled in. And we weren't quite bothered enough at the time to put ourselves to the trouble of trying to negotiate a better room, and then - if we succeeded - of repacking and re-unpacking all our things. All that said, I still find it disappointing that, as guests who'd booked a relatively long stay - at least we thought it was, but maybe people typically stay here for longer? - we were given what felt like the lowliest room in our category.
In the end, most of our experience here was positive: it was good value for the level of space, comfort and service provided, and we would consider coming back - but if we did, we would definitely request a better room when booking and be prepared to push for it on arrival too if necessary."
