Holiday Car Rental a Ripoff. We reserved a car in Cairns AU. Upon arriving by air we took a taxi…read moreto the rental shop - about 10 minutes from the airport. It was about 5PM. The shop was closed and no one answered the phone. we left a message with our number and no one returned the call. we had to rent another car to travel north to our hotel. After emailing Holiday Car, they took 5 weeks to respond with a form letter that we would not be refunded our payment. Do not use these folks - they are clearly a ripoff.

We rented a car from them at Punta Raisa airport in Palermo, Sicily because they were the only…read morecompany with an available car with an automatic transmission. We were a bit worried, since we'd never heard of them, but it turned out great! They gave us a little Volkswagon that we took up into the mountains to visit family and then to the beach the next day. It cost us $100/day, with insurance included in that price and no extra fees.

We don't usually rent from Avis but decided to give it a go when we were offered a special deal…read morethrough our credit card. So glad we did! Check in was a breeze. The agent was friendly and gave us options for different cars, including a larger car (a Mercedes). Because parking can be tight and the abundance of narrow streets, we stuck with the Fiat we reserved. The car was clean and fairly new. Returning the car was also easy. The area was well marked and the agent gave the car a quick once over. We were unable to refill the gas tank before returning it but received an estimate upon return, which wasn't exorbitantly expensive. We got our receipt and left. A very satisfying car rental experience.

Had a wonderful tour led by a man named Sergio. He was extremely knowledgeable about Palermo,…read morehistory of the island in general, food in particular, I needed it I was a wonderful sense of humor! I wish I could've kept track of all the different foods we sampled. I even like the spleen sandwich, although I was sort of prepared to not like it. BF and I are normally not the type of people to do tours, but the group is small and this was a highlight of our trip to Palermo.

This TOUR tho! Ah,…read morePalermo. Such an interesting, historical city. Full disclosure, I didn't want to go to Palermo--we had been in Catania and Ragusa and all that jazz and my husband insisted we spend a few days in Palermo. Ok, fine. We get there and it was ok. And it continued to be just ok until....enter Streaty, stage right. My husband had booked us a food tour and of course, being the fatass that I am, I was like, food? Ok, let's do this. But it better be good. And it was. Oh, it was. We met outside of the Massimo Theater (which of course, always cues that Zumba song by Pitbull in my head, of the same name). Then I saw him. There, in all his glory--our beautiful food tour angel. I'm going to go ahead and say his name was Marco because all of the other reviews talk about someone named Marco, but in all honesty I don't remember his name--he was the owner of Streaty so that is what I will call him in this review--and he was perfect. We all introduced ourselves with our names and where we came from which I thought, with being a small group of about 10, was really nice. We were then given a "food passport". GENIUS. It makes eating more than anyone should ever eat in one day seem like a victorious occasion, which I genuinely appreciated. It makes you hate yourself a bit less when you can look back at your stamped off achievements on this passport--it takes "oh my gosh, I can't believe I just ate all that food" into "hey y'all look at what I did! I did it! YAS!" For this alone, Marco deserves the Nobel Prize. Then we were off on our adventure! We walked through Palermo's food markets while Marco, in his stereotypically swoon-inducing Italian accent, told us personal stories and tales of Sicilian life, culture and family. And of course, the ins and outs of where to go and how to buy anything we could imagine. As we walked, it was great to see that our guide had such great personal relationships with every place we went to. It makes the tour that much more special. The food: I have no idea where to begin on this one--I suppose I'll say firstly, that I keep kosher. Which is super complicated to explain so to keep things easy, I just say I am vegetarian, to be safe--and everything was wonderful. When there was something meaty, I was given something vegetarian and it seemed like it was no trouble at all when in reality I know that it's a huge pain in the butt. So for you vegetarians out there--don't fret! This tour is for you, too. Everything we tried was delicious. My favorite was the chickpea thing that I don't remember at all what it's called. Just eat it. It's really good. I will give you this one warning though--ok I lied, I have 2 warnings: 1) You will go to a bar. It will be super seedy yet super awesome all at the exact same time. You will be offered olives that your guide brought in from elsewhere. Eat these olives. They won't let you down. You will also be offered some kind of sweet wines (I really don't understand why I don't remember the name of literally anything--GOOD THING I HAVE MY FOOD PASSPORT AT HOME TO REMIND ME!), and while they are sweet, don't be fooled--they are also strong. They may or may not be strong enough for you to encourage the cute journalist on the tour with you to be with the tour guide as a favor for all married womankind, to live vicariously through her. This may or may not have happened. (And girl, if you are reading this, hit me UP I have to know details!) 2) You will end at a gelato place. For some reason that I still don't understand, Sicilians think it's normal to eat gelato (also granita) in a brioche. I do not understand this for many reasons. The first being that brioche is not Italian. Why brioche? Why? Secondly, why is gelato ever ok for breakfast, brioche or no? Also, as a born and raised American (New Yorker, actually), I've seen some big portions in my day. But holy Lord, this thing is huge. My point being that there will be tons and tons of food. You have to ration yourself and weigh what is more important to you--the savory or the sweet--and plan accordingly. Ok, you've been warned. In conclusion, this tour is basically the best thing there is about Sicily and if you don't do it, you will really be missing out. Marco is a fantastic guide who is passionate about everything he talks about and really wants to make sure you have a good time, and he succeeds. Do NOT miss this tour when you are in Palermo--if I had known they had the same in Catania when we were there, we would have definitely done that too, it was THAT good. Why are you still reading this, go book now!

There are four or five different ways to get from Palermo's airport to downtown Palermo including a…read morehired taxi (€70), a negotiated taxi (€40), train (not sure how much), the shared taxi (€7) and the bus (€6). The bus departs PMO airport every 30 minutes at the top and bottom of the hour, so if your timing works out right, this could be the way for you to go. Amazingly, the bus left on time and was a smooth and comfortable 35 minutes through traffic to get to our stop. The seats worked fine, there was a USB slot to charge my phone charger and the seat was decently comfortable for six foot tall American. Definitely would recommend this method of travel. [Review 12818 overall, 132 of 2020.]

I usually rent from National but they have a partnership with Enterprise, so I rented from…read moreEnterprise. At the Palermo airport, Alamo, National and Enterprise are handled by Locauto. We arrived promptly for our reservation and were warmly greeted by Salvo who went over the details. He tried to upgrade us but was very politely declined and that was fine. He also offered the insurance but we declined that as well as it is included with my credit card. He finally offered the prepaid fuel and that we decided to take as I have no idea where gas stations are in Palermo and how they work. It was nice not to have to think about that today. They did take a €400 deposit on my credit card, but it's a deposit and they will release those funds in two weeks or so. No biggie and customary for rental cars. We walked out to the lot which is adjacent to the airport. If it's raining, you will get wet as it's a decent walk and it is entirely outside. At the hut, a nice employee had our car out front and we walked around looking for damage. If there was any, I didn't see it. The car was a Toyota Aygo, a four-cylinder five-door hatchback. Black. Stick-shift. It was very easy to drive, very clean and we had a good time. At one point, I had it up to 130 kph and it was perfect. Returning the car was easy. There's a huge sign for rental car returns. We followed the arrow, pulled into a space and another employee was there to check it out. No problems and we were on our way. It was a positive experience today and I would rent from these folks again in Palermo. [Review 12749 overall, 61 of 2020.]

Very good location. We were able to see the fireworks for our hotel room during one of the local…read moresummer "feste". The hotel is good. Pretty expensive. The employees nice. We forgot two items at the hotel, when back home we asked the staff to ship them back to us, and the only way to get them was by courier (expensive) instead of by common (pretty cheap) Italian mail delivery (poste italiane). Internet connection never worked, even though we asked for it more than once!

Only a short stay but lovely but the accommodations were thematic and well appointed. I am sorry we…read morecouldn't have stayed longer but it's proximity to the airport in Palermo was fantastic! I really want to come back to Tirassini and will stay again.

Beautiful hotel right in front of the Mediterranean Sea. With big pools, breakfast and lunch area…read moreplus wonderful restaurant, which we do need a reservation. Atmosphere is calm and relaxing, family friendly. Also, restaurant is open to outside people too. Food and chief here are amazing. Hotel service, concierge, especially Roberto is just wonderful. However, restaurant Ai Limoni service is not as good. But since chief and the food he makes is amazing we kind of bypassing the service lol. Our rooms are ocean view with balcony, clean and beautiful,, if you visit Sicily, do get this hotel, highly recommend