This is the first time I have ever been incredibly disappointed with a hotel that I have booked on the back of Trip advisor reviews. The only other bad experience of a hotel I have had since using this site was when I decided to ignore a couple of poor reviews!
I booked Hotel Roma Opera after being impressed by the rating - was #20 in Rome at the time and the prices, though not cheap, seemed okay by Rome standards.
I booked direct with the hotel via email and took advantage of the 15% discount they offered if paying 30 days or more in advance and paid in full 153 euros per night.
After an early flight from the UK we arrived to find that the room wasn't ready, which was fine, the hotel clearly states that check in time is 2pm. After a few hours sightseeing we returned and were taken to our room (102) which was on the ground floor a couple of steps from reception and the breakfast room.
On first impressions the room seemed very small and dark - the size wasn't so much of an issue, but when we drew back the curtains and opened the window slightly it appears that there was a wall directly outside and the room had absolutely no natural light.
We immediately asked reception for an alternative room but were told that there were no others, apart from a single, available until the following day but that they would move us.
It did appear from the way that we were dealt with that it probably wasn't the first time that this had happened. We were offered a "basket" with bathrobes as a kind of compensation I suppose but this never materialised.
After our early flight we tried to get a couple of hours sleep that afternoon but I was frequently disturbed by the sound of running water close by. I decided to open the "window" fully only to discover that there was no wall outside but that the "window" was simply an entrance to a maintainence chute which contained a ladder and the waste pipes from other floors and that the noise was waste coming down these pipes a few feet from our bed!!
My other concern was that as we were next to the breakfast room we would be disturbed by guests having early breakfasts at 7am. We weren't disturbed by guests the next day as we were woken at 6.15am by staff preparing for breakfast - banging crockery, scraping chairs across the floor, making coffee from a very noisy coffee machine!!, slamming doors and conversations between the various staff members.
After 30 minutes and failing to fall asleep again I complained to the reception staff who seemed unable to comprehend the problem. At this point I also asked for a discount due to the terrible room we had been given.
The area directly outside our room was also used as a dumping area for rubbish by the breakfast and cleaning staff.
We were moved on Saturday afternoon to room 207 which was very nice - the receptionist told us that as this was a superior room (and therefore an upgrade) they would only give us a 20 euro discount for the first night. We hadn't requested an upgrade, we just wanted a room which had a window and wasn't incredibly noisy!
A word of warning - if you do book a standard double you may be given room 102. When I booked the previous month there was plenty of standard double rooms available on different hotel booking websites so it feels unlikely that we were the last ones booking this standard of room. It does feel that as we had paid in full in advance we were given this room as they already had our money.
This room shouldn't be used as a hotel guest room, it was nothing more than a large storage room on the ground floor used to increase the number of rooms and therefore income for the hotel.
The reception staff were always very polite, helpful and apologetic and the room we had for the 2nd and 3rd nights was very nice but no better than a standard room you would find in an 4 star city hotel. Cleanliness was excellent, breakfast very average and location was okay - walkable to Termini but after a few times walking to the sites we started to take the Metro (very close to the hotel) and no. 64 bus - Rome is very wearing on the feet.
I completed the customer comments form they leave in the rooms with an email address (which they ask for if you would like a response) but have heard nothing.
The trip was booked as a restful break after several stressful months and unfortunately the hotel didn't give us the experience we expected.
