Bella Italia

I don't write many reviews but I felt I needed to for this experience.

Positives

The pool area is great for children with a larger variety of slides, water features and depths for all ages.

Lake Garda is on your door step and you have easy access to travel all around the area.

The supermarket, bakery and vegetable market are well stocked.

The train out of the campsite (although more queuing required due to the site being oversubscribed) is good for getting into Peschiera del Garda town.

The public shower areas appear clean and look fresher than the rest of the campsite.

We got parking for our rental car no problem outside the mobile home.

Playground was good for kids.

Negatives

The campsite is working about 30-40% over capacity. It was too hectic. They are just letting too many people through the gates.

There were people queuing for 2 hours + on arrival for check in.

Getting a sunbed at the poolside is like the Hunger Games every morning with people queuing from 8.00-8.30am and then sprinting into the pool area to take a bed. Then when you actually go to the pool a lot of the beds are just held with towels and other objects with nobody actually on them. There are signs around saying you can't do this. This rule is not being enforced. We never managed to get a sunbed for the whole week we were there.

The pool water appears to be dirty but I imagine this is because the park is completely oversubscribed as above. I couldn't relax at the pool with my child as there was so many people in the water they could be out of eyeline very quickly.

The mobile home we rented stunk of stale cigarettes. This affected all our clothes and bedsheets too. The couch structure was collapsed. The shower head spewed water in ever direction. The bathroom light didn't work. The inside on the home was constantly damp leaving our bedsheet feeling wet as well as every surface, floor, walls and ceiling feeling the same. The entrance area to the home was overgrown and generally unkept. The outside covered area of the home which is constructed from timber was rotten in places. The floor, furniture and balustrades in this area was filthy dirty.

We asked Eurocamp to move us after 2 nights there. They second mobile home they put us in was better. It was fresher and cleaner.

The entertainment music blared until 11pm every night which made in hard for children to get to sleep.

Summary

Very disappointing holiday. I am glad I had a rental car to escape the hectic environment of the campsite.

Our first holiday abroad as a family with a 4 year old. I'll start with the positives, the site itself was ideal. There were lots of different pool areas, some with slides and splash areas and other just small shallow pools. Obviously the pools with slides are busy and it was difficult to get a sun lounger (this was during term time so I imagine this would be a lot worse during the holidays). The normal pools were nice and quiet. There were lots of different play areas for kids around the park as well. The site itself was really clean and couldn't fault the staff. We eat at 4 out of 5 restaurants and they were all nice and reasonably priced, especially considering you're pretty much a captive audience. The site "supermarket" was good with a bakery and fresh meat and cheese and again it was reasonably priced.
Onto the negatives, we stayed in an Ibisco apartment and to say it was basic would be an understatement! We'd seen photos so thought we knew what to expect but it was worse than the photos. The apartment as a whole was dated, the shower leaked everywhere, the microwave didn't work at all, the curtains didn't cover the windows so it was difficult to sleep, the walls must have been made of paper as you could hear everything from the other apartments and there were ants everywhere.
Overall, it was a good holiday but we wouldn't go back due to the accommodation

The campground is in a good location, it has everything you need but is WAY TOO CROWDED, we stayed for 2 nights and payed €175 a night couldn’t use the pools as the place was like cattle market I mean we couldn’t find a spot for our towels it was that crowded, we also complained before writing this review giving them the opportunity to say SORRY about this issue but they didn’t they just said they have rights from the government to have the place this crowded (which in my opinion is the most ridiculous statement ever) it gave me the insight that they don’t care that your stay was unsatisfied and they have rights to have an overcrowded pool all day. I mean the only reason people come to a place like this is to enjoy the facilities but that wasn’t the case for us. They didn’t apologise, they just were defending themselves which is just unbelievable. You think a family campsite would care about their customers and having a good experience here but they don’t! This has really made me angry and even if they just said we are sorry that this wasn’t a satisfying experience and we recommended coming back at a time of year it’s not as busy. Not acknowledging the issue at all. I think this place is that busy they don’t care about the customers experience and don’t care about complaints because they are eating that much money is all they care about! I would suggest using a family friendly campsite as this is not a campground that has care for there customers all they care about is money!!!!!

I will NEVER EVER GO here again!

Die ersten Tage hatte es Gewitter ohne Ende. Dafür kann ja der Camping nichts. Die Strässchen wurden fast zu Bächen und es hatte enorm Probleme mit dem Wasserabfluss.

Die Anlage ist insgesamt toll aufgebaut worden. Auch die Bungalows sind grundsätzlich gut gemacht. Nun, leider ist das Ganze in die Jahre gekommen. Viele Defekte kommen erst beim zweiten, dritten Blick zum Vorschein. Die Spülung der Toilette und der Warmwassergebrauch ist bzw so laut, dass man sogar den Nachbar hört. (Es reicht um die Kids in der Nacht zu wecken.) Fliesen sind teils abgebrochen, Küchensockel nicht befestigt, Liegestühle teils defekt. Zudem ist es zwar sauber, aber eben doch nicht so sauber wie man es von einem 5-Sterne-Camping erwarten darf. Es ist und bleibt Camping, aber die liebe zum Detail fehlt vollkommen. Sprich: Papiere, Abfall in den Büschen, Hecken, Blumen etc sind nicht sonderlich gepflegt, Spielplätze, Sportplätze teils sehr heruntergekommen. Kinderanimation so lala, Öffentliche Toiletten werden zwar oft gereinigt, hat aber auch dort so einige Defekte. Einfach Schade! Essen ist überall i.O. Ist halt mehrheitlich Fastfood. (La Terrazze das Beste auf Platz) Poollandschaft wäre super.. aber es ist bereits jetzt unglaublich voll. Wirkt wie in einer Sardinenbüchse.

Die Lage an Gardasee ist der Hammer. Die Anlage hätte alles um perfekt zu sein. Doch wieso mehr investieren, wenn es sowieso rappelvoll ist..? So kommt es einem hier als Gast vor. Kein 5-Sterne-Camping. Eher ein 4er, mit Abzügen. Der Erfolg macht hier dem Anschein nach Träge. Die Kassen klimpern sowieso.

Ich bin eigentlich der Meinung: Wenn es gut ist, dann bewerten, wenn nicht, nicht bewerten. In diesem Fall hat es aber zu viele Mängel, um dies nicht zu bewerten.

Gleichzeitig frage ich mich, was ich denn eigentlich erwartet habe. Der grösste Fehler liegt wohl doch bei mir.

I really wanted to like Bella Italia as I had heard great things from friends and family however my own experience didn’t match up. This is a tired and as stated in a previous review “Rammed To The Rafters” resort.

We stayed in a three bed mobile home through euro camp, the kitchen/living area were decent size and layout, the kids rooms fine, however the main bedroom was so infuriatingly small (you couldn’t even stand to change your clothes). There is a toilet room (just a toilet!) and a shower room (shower and sink) which were fine, however it did get annoying having to cross the mobile home to wash your hands after you use the toilet! The mobile home offered zero privacy with every window being overlooked by a neighbour in extremely close proximity. It was clean on arrival but for some reason felt damp for our entire stay. The site in which the mobile was on appeared unkept.

If I were to ever return, which I believe is doubtful, I would try the bungalows as they appeared to have a little more privacy and appear to be situated in a safer area for small kids (no cars driving).

The restaurants on site are good with the exception of the food served at the pool area which is vile.

Which brings me on to the pool itself, be prepared to queue from 8:30am outside the gates at the pool in order to get a sun bed. I only braved the queue once (on day 7) after days of having no bed and most importantly no sun shade for the kids. I watched as grown men and women sprinted once the gates opened to get a sun bed (or several beds in some people’s cases) There has to be a better way of running this?!?

The best thing about Bella Italia camping is its direct access to the lake through several gated areas within the site. Here you can access the town of Peschiera which is fabulous and a 10 mins walk away along the stunning lakeside. There is also an on site train service from the site to Peschiera which is very handy and the kids loved it.

We had an unfortunate dealing with a Staff member in the reception area who provided us with the wrong information regarding how to get to Garda land which ruined our plans on the day and upset everyone. We end up waiting for over an hour at the wrong bus stop with two small kids in the heat and in the end had to abort our plans. We even double checked with this particular staff member during our wait for the bus and they assured us that we were at the right stop and that the bus was running late.

So to wrap it up, I think this resort in its day was probably the place to be but today, it appears to be just a money making machine. It’s obvious that they have just packed as many mobile homes caravans etc in to whatever space available. It needs more maintenance to the grounds around the mobile homes and the kids play areas could do with a revamp.