Il Castello di San Ruffino

Beautiful location, nice old renovated castle with very large rooms. Excellent restaurant with a stunning view at the outdoor terrace. Very friendly and helpful staff. I usually like to explore multiple hotels/locations, but this hotel and its crew made me come back five times this year.

Excellent! Thank you for the pleasant stay again!

This is wild! I stayed at this place this summer and added a - in my opinion - fair review on the boking.com page after our stay. I gave them a rating of 7, explained why, and I felt I was being generous. The owner decided to be absolutely uncivilized in response, which tells you everything you need to know about them, very "classy and tasteful" as they would say. Idk what is so prestigious about a busted plywood wardrobe and dresser. Everything was already slightly bent. Or maybe a giant Minnie Mouse painting with a fake Louis Vuitton border. I said "all deluxe suites" look like this, instead of "this one", because when I went to see if there was a mistake when assigning us our room, because I couldn't believe there was anything "deluxe" about it, the MANAGER told me that he doesn't know what I'm talking about because all those rooms look like this. So which is it now? Haha, yeah we got the coffee machine after complaining (not the rest of the promised amenities mind you) but it was all dirty and disgusting. About the upgrade we got - I appreciate it, really I do. And my rating reflects that. It's also not like we got the upgrade straight away. My complaints were rudely dismissed and only when my husband went to argue, we got the upgrade. But I can't with clear conscience give a deluxe suite (which I booked) a higher rating. I don't want to mislead other travelers, given this place has an inflated rating already. And thank you for judging me while knowing nothing about me. I actually stayed in many pretty and unique boutique hotels with a soul and charm. But this place has none of that.

Since the recent reviews and photos span both extremes I wanted to add my experience. Overall this was a good location to explore Tuscany from, but not a "resort" and hardly can be called a "hotel" as you are given a room and mostly left to fend for yourself here. The office staff was helpful but not always available. When any concerns were brought to the manager he dismissed them and then turned off his phone (the only contact information - like in case of emergency in the middle of the night - is the manager's cell phone; and there are no phones in the rooms). There may be some updated rooms that look like the photos but they are not all updated. My room was clean and large but had very poor lighting, no safe, and limited wi-fi. The bathroom was very musty and the shower was moldy. Of note many rooms are up narrow/steep flights of stairs with no elevator. The pool was nice but surrounded by mosquitos and no pool towels were readily available.

When I look at the review of Castello San Ruffino, I am struck that pre-covid the reviews are mostly all positive but more recently are mixed. Maybe the hotel suffered financially in that period. In any event, our experience overall was good but there are some caveats. To start, the room we had was quite large, in fact really two rooms and a large bathroom. One of the rooms was a bedroom and the other had a chest of drawers and a closet. The ceiling of the bedroom was decorated with a painting and there was interesting remote controlled lighting under the bed. The bed was comfortable and the room was clean. The breakfast was the best we have had in Italy and the dinner we had (included in our package) was good though not exceptional. We were also offered the use of a locked room for our bicycles, which was very convenient. We also were offered late checkout even though we did not ask for it. Finally, the hotel is in a very small hamlet. The area is very quiet and we had a great view. We really enjoyed doing a cycling loop to Lari and down to the valley before climbing back up. The major negative from our viewpoint was the poor internet. It was possible to access the internet in the common room, though it was a little iffy. Up in the bedroom, it did not work most of the time. Installing wired repeater could readily solve the problem. The other issue, is that while the bedroom was quite large, there was no place to sit other than the bed. It would have been nice to have a desk with a chair. Also no safe or refrigerator. If it wasn't for the wifi, we would have given the hotel 5-stars because of the hotel's charm though it is not the typical 4-star hotel. My view is that if you can get a room at the right price it is worth it. We had a package that was well below listed prices.

This was a terrible experience - it is not worth it. The photos are a couple years outdated and very misleading. The room was not clean and had a musty smell. We did not end up staying. We arrived there after driving through the beautiful countryside to arrive at a picturesque location. Check-in was messy, as there was only one person at the desk who closed up after every guest to bring them to their room before helping the next guest. The woman was very kind and helpful about the area while checking us in and then told us to pay for our whole stay in advance. This did strike us as odd, but we paid in good faith. Afterwards we were brought to the room and and she quickly disappeared before we could enter. We had booked one of the junior suites. Upon entering we immediately noticed a very musty smell and the fact that the suite looked extremely old. There were water stains on the ceiling (peeling paint) and the walls, the couch had shreds for fabric and the room was not clean (stain on pillow, dirty bathroom floor, toilet paper was wet (?), unclean shower head, and the filter of the heater/airco was never cleaned… I can go on). This is not acceptable for a four star hotel. In addition, we had been told we would be responsible for cleaning the kitchen as this was not included in the rate. This dirty room, water damage and smell left us with little hope as to the state of what we could not see in the walls… When confronting the woman at the desk she acted very defensive and refused to believe me. We evidently no longer wanted to stay at the property, even in a different room. They refused even a partial refund for our 6 night stay and became more aggressive. We left and booked another hotel last minute instead. We did not see any money back, which is regrettable but preferable over having to spend the night there. This is NOT worth the four star rating! Additional remark: reviews were very negative over the summer and then suddenly we noticed a number of positive reviews (all 5/5 or 100%) without additional text. This seems fishy to us, so therefore I decided to leave this long review to warn other travelers.

We have just stayed 3 nights and seriously do not go by the photos. We initially stayed in apartment 8 . The room smelt musty. The toilet was hard to flush and the air conditioner in the living room did not work. We moved the next day to apartment 1 . It was ok . Both apartments lacked 2 bedside tables and 2 bedside lights. The shower/ jacuzzi bath didn’t work properly but at that point I had given up complaining. The Wi-Fi in both apartments failed to work our entire trip. Everything is shabby and run down but the place was clean. The pool is smaller than you imagine and the sun beds kept breaking with legs falling off. Again I didn’t complain as the staff were nice and what can they do…They try to charge for beach / pool towels . So take your own or demand they are included as the place is not cheap.. It is a shame as the setting is nice and I am sure 8 years ago it was lovely .

I chose San Ruffino for the location as it was not far from Lajitico Teatro Silenzio where I was going to see Andrea Bocelli. Please be aware the photos online are nothing how it looks at present, building and grounds require a lot of repair and new outdoor furniture,the pool is not maintined in any way and the pool sunbeds are so old and falling apart, in fact a I witnessed a lady fell as the sunbed she was lying on collapsed. I would say it is extremely expensive for what it is as there is no bar to get water let alone a drink, reception is closed more than it is open, the girls were very accommodating when they were there. It was so pathetic that Carlotta wanted to charge me for coffee pods! Bathrooms are very old and need updating, shower was leaking and the toilet roll holders,bins, rails rusty. There was no long length mirror in the suite I was in. Wifi never worked. As for the "Restaurant" am lost for words and the staff beyond doubt were not Italian and the food served did not resemble Italian Tuscan food, they were very nice people apart from the elderly woman who was so rude and no customer service skills, tried to charge me for basket bread 4 Euros which was not touched. Beautiful setting but terrible food and everywhere inside and out needs updating. If you are coming to stay you need a car as taxis very expensive and if you are going to see Andrea Bocelli do not be fooled to pay 250 euros to get there, we got a taxi to Lajitico 70 euros each way. So sad as I would come back if better service,food and maintained. Not worth the money.

Unattentive, unfriendly and arrogant staff at reception, no one really cares about a broken toilet seat, the room and bathroom of the junior suite is outdated, pool and deck chairs as well the entire resort in a very messy, dirty condition. We decided to leave earlier. Internet not working at all, when raising this matter the receptionist became very rude that it is not her fault, but due to provider. We all understand that due to Covid-19 everyone has gone through difficult times. But being ripped off with a very high room rate for a very bad qualitiy and unattentive staff we felt “unwanted”.