Hotel Caesar Palace
Hotel Caesar Palace is a 4-star, family-oriented seasonal hotel on a hillside above Giardini Naxos, on Sicily's north-east coast, a short drive south of the clifftop town of Taormina. It's a single building of 223 rooms set in its own gardens, with two outdoor pools, a Mini Club and a summer entertainment programme, plus a free shuttle down to the town and a partner beach on the seafront. Families come for the lively animation team, the free shuttle and a lower price than the area's bigger resort hotels.
On this page
Is it worth it?
Who the hotel suits, the two things that shape a week here and the facts to skim before the detail.
Hotel Caesar Palace is a 4-star seasonal hotel run by Parc Hotels Italia, an Italian group, and it aims squarely at families: the Mini Club, the entertainment team and the children's pool are front and centre from mid-May to mid-September. It's a single hillside building of 223 rooms rather than a spread-out village of blocks, so it's compact and walkable, with its own gardens, two outdoor pools and a couple of restaurants.
Across the review sites it lands consistently in the same band, very good rather than exceptional, around 3.9 to 4.1 out of 5 and roughly 8.4 out of 10, from thousands of reviews. What families praise most is the staff, and the animation team in particular, along with the cleanliness, the free shuttle and the children's pool and playground. The steadier gripes are dated decor and mixed food, and the main pool is often full of children rather than a calm one, which comes with an entertainment-led hotel.
This isn't a beachfront hotel. It sits back on the hillside, about half a mile to a mile (1 to 1.5 km) above the town, and you reach the seafront and its partner beach on the free shuttle rather than on foot. There's no crèche or nursery either, so a baby or toddler stays with you, and no room here has a separate bedroom. Weigh those against the lower price.
Best for
You want a lively, entertainment-led family hotel with a Mini Club and a children's pool, a free shuttle to the beach and town, at a lower price than the area's bigger resorts.
Maybe not for
You want to step straight onto the sand, a calm adults-focused pool, organised childcare for a baby or a room with a separate bedroom for nap times.
Best ages
Children of about 4 and up for the Mini and Junior Club, and 12 and up for the teen activities. Younger children stay with you and use the pool, playground and general entertainment.
What stands out
The animation team, the strength reviewers name most, and the free shuttle down to the beach and town.
What to check
That your dates fall in the mid-May to mid-September season, and any high-season club or beach charge plus the tourist tax you pay at the hotel.
Where is it?
On a hillside above Giardini Naxos on Sicily's north-east coast, a short drive south of Taormina.
Quick facts for families
What the hotel is like
Where it sits above Giardini Naxos, how the one building is laid out and the practical things: parking, check-in, pets and cancelling.
Hotel Caesar Palace sits on a hillside above and set back from Giardini Naxos, a coastal town on Sicily's north-east, Ionian coast, close to the archaeological park of ancient Naxos. It's a single hotel building in its own gardens rather than a village of separate blocks or bungalows, so it's compact: you walk between the rooms, the two pools and the restaurants, and there's no golf buggy or internal shuttle to ferry you around the grounds. For the wider region, its beaches and when to go, see our Sicily guide.
The hotel markets itself firmly as a family place, and its own pages lead with the Mini Club and the entertainment programme. Alongside the family business it runs a congress and events centre for up to 300 people, used for weddings, conferences and receptions, so at some times of year you may find business or wedding groups staying too.
A free, unattended private car park and garage are open to all guests, subject to space, which is worth knowing since a hire car is useful here. Check-in is from 3pm and check-out by 10am. Reception is staffed 24 hours and will book excursions, hire a car or moped, call a taxi, change money, send mail or postcards and photocopy documents. Valuables can go in a free safety-deposit box at the desk, though there's a deposit for the key, as there is for the in-room safe in some room categories. One small pet per room, up to 10 kg, is allowed for a small daily charge, though not in the shared areas. Room service and a laundry and ironing service are available on request for an extra charge, and aren't part of any board.
The hotel says it has rooms suitable for guests with disabilities but gives no detail, so contact it directly to confirm your needs before booking. On cancellations, you can change or cancel free up to 2 days before arrival, stretching to 7 days for the peak fortnight of 10 to 22 August; inside that window one night is charged, and prepaid or non-refundable rates carry their own rules set when you book.
The journey in and getting aboutGetting there and around
The nearest airport is Catania-Fontanarossa (CTA), about 34 miles (55 km) away and roughly an hour by road, the drive skirting the flank of Mount Etna. Flights from most UK airports take around 3 hours, and the currency is the euro. No airport transfer is included, so you'll arrange your own taxi, coach or hire car, or add a transfer through your holiday operator. Catania is the airport families use for this hotel; Palermo, on the far side of the island, isn't a realistic option.
The hotel isn't walkable to the town or the beach with a pushchair and luggage, but it isn't cut off either. A free hotel shuttle bus runs down to the town centre and the seafront, roughly 09:00 to 23:00, and a local bus passes the front of the hotel. Taormina, about 3 miles (4.4 km) away, is reached on that local bus, which climbs the hill in a series of sharp bends. A hire car makes the days out easier, and Messina is about 30 miles (49 km) up the coast.
Every restaurant and bar
Both restaurants and both bars, one by one, with the meal times and how the board changes in peak season.
Food is served in two restaurants and two bars, and the board you're on decides how much of it is included. Outside July and August you can book bed and breakfast, half board, full board or all-inclusive; in July and August the All Inclusive XXL package is the only option. If you're on half board, remember it doesn't cover drinks or water at dinner.
Ristorante Tindari is the main restaurant. Breakfast is a buffet, 7:00 to 10:30, with hot and cold food and drinks; lunch runs 12:30 to 2:00 as a set menu or a buffet; and dinner is a buffet, 7:00 to 9:00, of Italian regional and international dishes, with a weekly Sicilian evening set to folk music. Reviews on the food are mixed: some praise the traditional Sicilian cooking, while others find the hot dishes lukewarm and the choice repetitive, and one diner noted the vegetarian options ran mainly to pasta with tomato sauce. Hours can shift with the season and how busy it is.
Grill restaurant and pizzeria Germano is the more casual option, open for lunch only, 12:30 to 2:15, from April to October. It does salads, Italian first courses, fish, grilled meat and pizza, and a children's menu is available here.
Bar Fontane is the main lounge and evening bar, open from 9:30 in the morning until midnight, serving coffee, ice cream, snacks, wine and cocktails, with a piano bar each night. Bar Trinacria is the daytime poolside bar beside the main pool, open from April to September, roughly 9:00 to 7:00.
Dinner is buffet-style and there's no à la carte table to book. For a change from the hotel, Al Fagiano Ristorante Pizzeria is right next door, praised for its four-cheese pizza and its steak.
Rooms
Every room type with its official size, and which layouts work for a family with a baby or toddler.
The rooms come in four categories, Smart, Economy, Standard and Deluxe, plus a single room and a double sold for solo use. Each category is sold as a double, a triple or a quadruple, the extra beds being sofa beds, and the stated size steps up a little with each. The table is the full line-up with the hotel's own sizes; the guidance after it is which suit young children.
| Room | Size | Sleeps | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single room | 14 m² | 1 | Bathrobe, a safe, a minibar, tea and coffee and low-speed Wi-Fi. No balcony. |
| Double for single use | 18 m² | 1 | A Standard double sold for solo use, with low-speed Wi-Fi. |
| Smart double | 15 m² | 2 | Air conditioning and a kettle. No minibar and no safe. |
| Smart triple | 16 m² | 3 | As the Smart double, with a single sofa bed added. |
| Smart quadruple | 17 m² | 4 | As the Smart double, with a double sofa bed added. |
| Economy double | 16 m² | 2 | Air conditioning, a kettle, a minibar and low-speed Wi-Fi. No safe. |
| Economy triple | 17 m² | 3 | As the Economy double, with a single sofa bed added. |
| Economy quadruple | 18 m² | 4 | As the Economy double, with a double sofa bed added. |
| Standard double | 18 m² | 2 | A hairdryer, a safe, a minibar, tea and coffee, low-speed Wi-Fi and a bidet. |
| Standard triple | 19 m² | 3 | As the Standard double, with a single sofa bed added. |
| Standard quadruple | 20 m² | 4 | As the Standard double, with a double sofa bed added. |
| Deluxe double | 20 m² | 2 | As Standard, and the only rooms with a balcony or terrace. |
| Deluxe triple | 22 m² | 3 | As the Deluxe double, with a single sofa bed added. |
| Deluxe quadruple | 24 m² | 4 | As the Deluxe double, with a double sofa bed added. |
Every room has an en-suite bath or shower, a phone, satellite TV, free toiletries and air conditioning, which the hotel runs during the hot season at its own discretion rather than year-round. Wi-Fi is free throughout the hotel, though it's described as low-speed rather than fast.
The Smart rooms are the entry level and the exception on amenities, coming without a minibar and without a safe. Economy adds a minibar but still no safe, and the safe arrives with Standard and Deluxe.
None of the categories has a separate bedroom or a lounge, so every triple and quadruple is one room with sofa beds added rather than an interconnecting or two-room layout. A family of four shares a single room throughout, which is worth thinking about for nap times and bedtimes. Set against that, reviews consistently call the rooms large for their category and spotlessly clean.
Deluxe rooms are the only ones with a balcony or terrace, and reviewers who book them tend to rate them the highest. Standard and Deluxe bathrooms have a bidet, standard in Italian hotels. Across the categories the decor is described as dated, motel-like in places, though clean and well kept.
Pools and water features
There are two outdoor pools, and neither is heated. The main pool is about 33 m by 22 m and 1.20 to 1.80 m deep, with sunbeds and parasols around it and Bar Trinacria alongside. The children's pool is 15 m by 7.5 m and much shallower, 0.40 to 0.60 m, with a small playground, a little open-air theatre for evening shows and the Mini and Junior Club all beside it.
There's no splash pad, no indoor or spa pool, no adults-only pool and no wellness or spa centre at all. Free pool towels are available to guests, subject to space.
The main pool is lively rather than calm, and often used by children as well as adults, which fits an entertainment-led hotel with the daily programme running poolside. A few guests mention a roof terrace as a quieter place to sunbathe away from the pool.
The beach
Hotel Caesar Palace doesn't have its own beach. It uses a partner beach, Lido Naxos Beach, on the Giardini Naxos seafront, reached on the free shuttle, about half a mile to a mile (1 to 1.5 km) down the hill. The beach has a bar, with snacks and drinks charged. UK tour operator First Choice lists one parasol and two deckchairs per room, from 15 May to 12 September.
A first-hand family account describes gently sloping sand that stays shallow a good way out, which suits young children, with a lifeguard on duty, though they noted the lifeguard didn't appear on one occasion. Giardini Naxos isn't on Sicily's 2026 Blue Flag list, an award for water quality and facilities; the neighbouring towns of Taormina, at Mazzeo, and Letojanni are, both a short drive north.
On the public beach there's jet-ski hire and an inflatable water-park pontoon in the sea, plus the usual beach vendors. For somewhere quieter, families point to Recanati beach a little further along, and the sand turns golden at the Schisò end of the bay.
Babies and toddlers
The clubs and their ages, the seasonal charges to budget for and the gaps in baby provision.
The clearest thing to be straight about is that there's no crèche or nursery here, and no supervised care for the under-4s. There's nobody to leave a baby or toddler with, so a young child is with you throughout. What they get instead is the general family atmosphere, the children's pool and playground and an animation team that reviews describe as warm even with the youngest children.
The Mini and Junior Club run through the season, effectively from about age 4. Teenagers of 12 and up have table tennis and more. The entertainment season runs from about mid-May to mid-September.
There's also a seasonal charge to budget for. In high season the hotel is described as adding a small mandatory local charge that covers the children's club, the pool and partner-beach access, charged per person per night for part of a stay, with the youngest children exempt. Those details come from booking listings rather than the hotel's own site, so treat them as a guide and check the current charge with the hotel or your operator before you book. On top of that there's the standard Italian municipal tourist tax, which you pay in cash at the hotel.
Cots, highchairs, sterilisers, bottle warmers and baby food aren't guaranteed, so don't assume any of it is provided. If you need a cot or particular baby equipment, confirm it with the hotel or your operator before you book.
Around the hotelThings to do
Through the season there's a daily entertainment programme. For adults it runs to stretching, aqua gym, tournaments and dance classes by day, and live music by the pool in the evening. For children there's the Mini Club with workshops and an evening baby dance, and the small theatre by the children's pool for shows.
On-site sport and games cover billiards, for a charge, table tennis, mini-basketball, darts and water polo, plus a miniature golf area.
There's no spa, wellness centre or gym, and no organised sports academies such as tennis or football coaching, so the activity offer is lighter than at some of the bigger Sicilian family resorts.
An in-house Info Tours desk and an online excursion-booking service handle day trips, and there's a separate on-request shuttle for a charge, which is different from the free beach and town shuttle.
The area and days out
Taormina up the hill, Isola Bella and the boat trips and the bigger days out around the bay.
Giardini Naxos sits on a wide bay on Sicily's Ionian coast, just south of the clifftop town of Taormina, and takes its name from the ancient Greek colony of Naxos whose archaeological park is close by.
Taormina, about 3 miles (4.4 km) away and a short drive or local bus ride, is the standout day out: a hilltop historic town with a well-preserved ancient Greek theatre. Below it, Isola Bella is a tiny island joined to the shore by a causeway, part of a marine park, reached on a boat trip or a kayak from the beach.
Boat operators run from the harbour near the beach for coastal trips to hidden bays and Baia delle Sirene, with kayak and paddleboard options too. Mount Etna, which you can see from the pool area, is a common day trip from this part of Sicily, though it isn't arranged by the hotel. Closer to hand, the Lido Acquascivoli water-slide attraction is about a 25-minute walk away.
For the wider region, its beaches and the best months, see our Sicily guide.
Loves and gripes
What families rate and what frustrates them, drawn from across the review sites.
What families love
- The staff, and the animation team above all, singled out again and again.
- How clean the rooms and grounds are kept.
- The children's pool, the playground and the Mini Club.
- The free shuttle to the beach and town.
- The value for the money against the area's bigger hotels.
Common gripes
- Dated, motel-like decor in the rooms.
- Mixed food, with lukewarm hot dishes and a repetitive buffet a recurring note, and one report of rushed restaurant service.
- A main pool often full of children, and poolside noise in the evening.
- Mosquitoes worth packing for, and a single, isolated 2023 report of bed bugs not echoed since.
- The odd awkward bathroom layout, a large pillar blocking toilet access in one room and a bidet the door catches on in another.
Put together, the picture is consistent across the review sites: very good rather than exceptional. It sits around 3.9 to 4.1 out of 5 on TripAdvisor and Google, and about 8.4 out of 10 on Expedia and others, from thousands of reviews, and TripAdvisor ranks it seventh of the 42 hotels in Giardini Naxos. Value for money is a repeated strength. Scores move, so treat these as a rough steer and check the current ones yourself.
Against the alternativesHow it compares
Among the family hotels on this part of Sicily, Hotel Caesar Palace is the more budget-friendly, conventional seasonal-hotel option rather than a big all-inclusive village. Its nearest local comparison is UNAHOTELS Naxos Beach Sicilia, also in Giardini Naxos, which has direct private-beach access and a children's restaurant, so it's the one to look at if stepping straight onto the sand matters more than price.
For organised care of a baby, VOI Arenella Resort near Syracuse has a dedicated nursery for the under-2s, which this hotel has no equivalent to. The larger all-inclusive resorts such as Mangia's Brucoli and Grand Palladium Sicilia sit at a higher price with more structured facilities, and Verdura Resort is a luxury option in a different bracket altogether. These are pointers to help you shortlist rather than head-to-head verdicts.
Weather and when to go
The season the hotel runs, the best months for young children and the weather behind them.
The hotel's family season runs from about mid-May to mid-September, when the entertainment and clubs are on; the Germano grill opens a little wider, April to October. The figures below are for the Giardini Naxos coast specifically, which runs a touch cooler and, come October, markedly wetter than the island as a whole.
The warmest, most reliable swimming window is late June to early September, when the sea sits at 22 to 26°C, days are hot and there's very little rain. May and late September are gentler shoulders, still warm, while October brings a sharp jump in rain, so it's worth planning around rather than assuming Sicily stays dry into autumn.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 15° | 10° | 98 mm | 10 | 15° |
| February | 15° | 9.5° | 110 mm | 10 | 15° |
| March | 16.5° | 11° | 78 mm | 9 | 15° |
| April | 19° | 13° | 65 mm | 9 | 16° |
| May | 21.5° | 16° | 36 mm | 4 | 19° |
| June | 26° | 20° | 18 mm | 2 | 23° |
| July | 29° | 23° | 7 mm | 1 | 27° |
| August | 29.5° | 23.5° | 32 mm | 2 | 28° |
| September | 27° | 21.5° | 65 mm | 5 | 26° |
| October | 24° | 18° | 106 mm | 8 | 23° |
| November | 20° | 15° | 118 mm | 10 | 20° |
| December | 16.5° | 11.5° | 124 mm | 12 | 17° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer. The hotel's family season runs about mid-May to mid-September.
Questions
The things families ask most, and where to see the photos.
Which airport do we fly into, and is a transfer included?
Catania is the airport, about an hour's drive away, and there's no transfer laid on. Book a taxi, a private transfer or a hire car in advance, or add one through your operator, rather than expecting to sort it at the airport. A hire car also makes the days out easier once you're there.
Are there extra charges to budget for on top of the room?
Yes, two to plan for. In peak season the hotel is described as adding a small compulsory local charge, per person per night for about the first week, which the youngest children are exempt from. Those details come from booking listings rather than the hotel's own site, so check the current charge with the hotel or your operator before you book. Separately you pay the Italian tourist tax in cash at the hotel, so bring some euro cash for check-in.
Is there any childcare so we can have an evening out?
No. There's no crèche, nursery or babysitting, and the Mini Club takes children from about 4, so you'll have a baby or toddler with you day and evening. If someone to mind a young child is a deal-breaker, look at a resort with a dedicated nursery instead.
Do we have to go all-inclusive?
Only in July and August, when the All Inclusive XXL package is the single option. In any other month you can choose bed and breakfast, half board, full board or all-inclusive instead. If you take half board in June or September, remember drinks and water at dinner aren't included, so budget for those on top.
Where can we get an evening drink by the pool?
The poolside Bar Trinacria is a daytime bar and closes around 7pm, so for the evening head to Bar Fontane, the lounge bar, which runs its piano bar until midnight.
Will there be a cot for a baby?
Treat a cot as something to arrange, not a given. Request one when you book, through the hotel or your tour operator, along with any highchair or other baby kit you'll need, so it's noted on your booking.
How late can we cancel or change the booking?
On the standard rate, free changes and cancellations close 2 days before arrival, or 7 days before for the peak fortnight of 10 to 22 August; cancel later than that and you're charged one night. Prepaid and non-refundable rates work differently, so check which rate you're booking before you pay.
What do we need to travel from the UK?
There's no FCDO warning against travel to Sicily. Your passport needs to have been issued in the last 10 years and stay valid for at least 3 months after you leave, and UK visitors can stay visa-free for up to 90 days. The hotel registers your passport at check-in, which is routine in Italy. Check gov.uk close to travel for the EU's entry-exit checks.
See Hotel Caesar Palace photos
Open the Hotel Caesar Palace photo gallery →Useful links
- Hotel Caesar Palace: the hotel's own site for the rooms, the board options and the family programme.
- GOV.UK Italy travel advice: entry rules and safety updates before you travel.
- Sicily with little ones: our guide to the island, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 16 July 2026.
