Laura and the entire staff here are extremely kind, hospitable, helpful and just amazing all…read morearound. Every single need or desire we had they cared for us like we were family. We ended up here after a car accident on the way to catch our flight out of Zurich and it couldn't have been more perfect. They not only helped us get our car to a first class auto shop, black car taxis to the auto shop, luggage carried all over, translations for us as we don't speak Italian, help changing our flights, dinner breakfast fresh fruit in the rooms and water. It was truly amazing. We are forever grateful for this place and these people, and will tell everyone we know about it all! We will be back for sure! :) thank you with all our hearts!

Friendly staff, awesome location in Lugano. The old-school interior is not my thing, but the hotel…read moreis not trying to be chic. Wish I had brought my tennis stuff to play on their clay court.

Stayed there inJuly 2010. Great little hotel (and the luggage delivery system from the street…read moreparking level down to the hotel is interesting!). Great view of Lake Lugano and really great waking up to palm trees in Switzerland!

It was very pleasant to have breakfast here this morning. Katia gave us very good service and the…read morehotel room is very special and clean too .

Hotel City was outstanding: it was great in all the ways that Swiss hotels are great, and not…read moreflawed in the ways they can be flawed. The hotel itself is clean, modern, and elegant, even if in a slightly Euro way (some of the furniture can remind you of IKEA). The rooms are unusually large. The breakfast is excellent. The WiFi works really well. The staff are friendly and accommodating (the breakfast staff especially so). The public spaces are simple but pleasant (even the staircase was created with an eye for design). The floors are also laid out well. Every floor has a printer, shoe cleaner, and coffee machine (in addition to coffee/tea facilities in the room), which are constantly refilled. Call down for an iron and you'll have one in minutes. That is, this place works just as well for business as leisure. The rooms feature air conditioning. There must be times in the summer when that's really useful. Even during more temperate times, it can help if a room starts to feel stuffy. A/C isn't a given in many European hotels, so it's a feature worth noting. One other noteworthy quality: two blocks north of the hotel is a self-service laundromat [https://www.lavanderiaselfservice.ch/], which is open long hours, has English instructions, and has friendly staff who also speak some English. [Tip: the washers automatically dispense detergent.] It's close enough that you can start off a wash, return to the hotel, eat a 30 min breakfast, walk back over, and your washing will just about be done. The quality of location depends on what you're in town for. It's not next to the waterfront or the pedestrian zones, which are a 10-15 minute walk away. However, it is right next to USI (the main university). Also, if for some reason you can't or don't want to walk, there are several bus lines that depart from a block away in multiple directions that will get you to the pedestrian zone, waterfront, Parco Civico, central bus station, train station, Paradiso, etc. quite promptly, so this location even works for a tourist. What you lose in absolute location you gain in price, facilities, and quality of service. If I had to pick one nit, it's the silly WiFi registration system, which requires an authentication every time you return to the hotel network. If you forget to re-authenticate you aren't connected, which means you could be eating up data on an expensive roaming plan (wonder how I know that...). Without getting all nerdy here, it's not hard to improve the authentication step so that this repeated authentication isn't required, and that would be a clear improvement. But, you know, you're really plumbing the depths when that's all you have to complain about...

Great View, Good Food…read more A friend who is resident in Lugano introduced us to this well-known lakeside restaurant within a very established, some say stuffy, hotel in Lugano. The terrace view is great and we enjoyed an avocado salad, the vegetarian lasagna, and well-prepared salmon. Service was professional but perfunctory. Prices are on the high side, but this is Lugano. We ate well and enjoyed the view. As the other review, written years ago noted, observing the other clientele has a certain entertainment value, but not because they are young and hip. Not much has changed in a decade.

2.5/5 stars - Beautiful views, but a hotel trying too hard to be something it's not…read more This hotel feels like a mid-range property trying very hard to project the image of a luxury hotel, but the service, atmosphere, and attention to detail simply don't support that positioning. The positives first: the lake views are stunning, the location on the water is beautiful (about 10 minutes by bus from central Lugano), housekeeping was excellent, the breakfast cappuccino was fantastic, and the fresh-squeezed orange juice was a wonderful touch. We also enjoyed a quality dinner with friendly restaurant service. However, if you're traveling with young children, I would absolutely NOT consider this a family-friendly hotel. The day before check-in, we emailed to confirm our reservation and were given incorrect dates, causing unnecessary stress, before receiving a follow-up confirming that our original dates were correct. Throughout the hotel there are numerous stern, angry-sounding signs everywhere - don't use pool towels without assistance, don't take food from breakfast, don't feed the fish, don't feed the birds, etc. While rules are understandable, the cumulative effect is an atmosphere that feels much more focused on enforcement than hospitality. The pool policies perfectly capture the overall vibe. Guests are limited to one towel per person, additional towels require an extra charge, there is absolutely no self-service for towels, and guests are expected to purchase food and beverages from the hotel rather than bring their own water or snacks to enjoy by the pool. Individually these rules may be understandable, but together they create an experience that feels unnecessarily rigid and commercial rather than relaxing and welcoming. The property itself also feels somewhat tired. There is older furniture throughout and inexpensive, cheesy tablecloths that don't align with the upscale image the hotel is so desperately trying to project. We also had an unpleasant experience renting a paddle boat. We were told to find it ourselves and then, upon returning, were charged three times the clearly posted rate and told it was priced per person, despite both the signage and rental form clearly stating it was priced per boat. When I politely questioned the discrepancy, the staff member involved struggled to remain professional. After a long day in the sun, our exhausted children simply wanted to eat sandwiches and go to bed. Out of respect, I asked where we could quietly do this with minimal impact to hotel operations and was told they could sit on the floor of their hotel room to eat. We instead sat discreetly on a floating dock away from hotel service areas and were confronted and yelled at by the same staff member, who called the owner's wife but then would not allow us to speak with her. Unbelievable. The front desk staff also felt surprisingly inattentive. Rather than feeling welcomed and cared for, interactions often felt dismissive and transactional. It created the impression that internal routines may be prioritized over guest experience. Finally, I recently came across a February 2026 news article discussing a potential sale of the property and possible redevelopment into apartments, although nothing appears to be official. If those discussions are indeed ongoing, it would not surprise me if some of the service and maintenance shortcomings we experienced are related to uncertainty about the hotel's future. In summary: a beautiful property with incredible views that could be excellent, but currently feels like a hotel trying very hard to be high-end without delivering a truly high-end guest experience - especially for families.

A friend highly recommended we stay here, and she was right…read more This is a beautifully situated boutique hotel with nine rooms, accessible by walking a few hilly miles or taking a boat - no vehicle access. If interested, check out their website. It's accurate. The manager picked us up at a car park nearby and brought us back, all in a small outboard motor boat. (There is a ferry from Lugano that stops there too.) The staff was fabulous - welcoming, friendly, helpful, flexible, everything you could want. Our room (#5) had fabulous views out over Lake Como and the Alps. Breakfast was included, and that was terrific too. Dinner is available, but in the off season like April it's not too exciting. Figuring out how to get to their car park was a project. Google map assumes the road on the hillside above the hotel provides access - it does not. You need to find Via Riviera out of Lugano, go east, and take Via Cortivo, a very narrow road that splits off to the right. Go to the end and look for the small parking area at the boat dock underneath you. 50 metres back is the lane going down there, which is where you'll park IF they are coming to pick you up. Or take the ferry from Lugano. Hopefully those directions save you an hour of online research and much concern as you try to find someone who speaks enough English to direct you.