Zen Hotels reached out and asked us to try their new app and give them some feedback. Technically this is an Ad, yes, but we are genuinely impressed.

As a rule of thumb we won’t work with brands or products that we don’t love or have had a bad experience with, so what you’re about to read is our own personal and positive experience with the Zen hotels app.

Similar to other platform, the landing page invites you to enter the dates for your trip, location which can be country, city, or hotel name, & the number of guests. Once you’ve done that, it bring up all the options for you.

Now if you’re a Type A Itinerary maker and part time (unpaid haha) review reader, you’ll know that you want to filter the s**t out of your search. We were planning a one night romantic getaway for just us two, so we went ahead with our fancy filters, 4 & 5* only, private parking, fancy breakfast, gym and spa. We picked Catania because it’s a city we love and it’s only 90 mins from home, so perfect for a quick escape.

Wishing around 60 seconds I had my eye on two hotels and a couple of minutes later after reading through a dozen reviews of each place, my mind was made up. Zen Hotels app uses inbuilt Trip Advisor reviews, so something we are familiar with and this was reassuring for me.

You can watch our booking experience here:

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A few days later we arrived at UNA Esperienze Catania to exceptional service, spotlessly clean common areas and bedroom with everything we could need. We loved it so much we decided to dine at their Rooftop bar and restaurant with views of Etna and the city. We slept perfectly with full stomachs in our comfortable bed and in the morning, while I enjoyed a lie-in, my husband tested out the gym – he said ‘It’s small, but with everything you need’. Turns out they have a multi gym machine for torturing lots of your muscle groups, which apparently is a great thing! They also have Turkish baths which unfortunately we didn’t try out this time as we both had a bit of a cold and didn’t fancy a dip, but it looked wonderful.

Next was breakfast – what a spread! Delicious, healthy, varied is how I’d describe it. There were sweet treats too of course – if you go, you must try the Ravioli (yes they’re sweet and a breakfast food!) with fresh ricotta – they are kind of like a calzone shaped sugar doughnut stuffed with creamy ricotta. What’s not to love?! Service at both the breakfast restaurant and Etnea Rooftop bar was excellent.

Check in and out went perfectly. We left our bags at first as we arrived a few hours before check in, they were picked up from our car & handled with care. Our car was taken by the bellboy to a secure private car park and returned to us on check out. The hotel also handled registering our plates for the restricted traffic zone to save us from getting a fine.

All in all we were so impressed by the easy of booking through the Zen Hotels app and the quality of the properties on their site.

Other cool app features include:

• you can add your booking to your wallet on iPhone/ apple devices
• They have a loyalty scheme and sent you discounts after your stay is complete to be used within a certain time frame. In our case within 90 days.

So it’s a thumbs up from us. Our booking, payment and stay went without a hitch. So keep it in mind next time you’re booking – you might just snag a deal. Oh and if you do book – make sure to use our code ZENGOPOPOLO for 10% off your booking!

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Alexandra & Salvo