We stayed at the Holiday Inn West prior to a cruise embarkation and again at the end of the cruise. I will say that the reviews on this site were very helpful. My expectations were pretty low going into it as so many people had complained about the showers, elevators, and beds. I was pleasantly surprised by the modern feel of the hotel and am glad we chose here to stay. It is true that the hotel is no where near the center of Rome but it is accessible by cab and I heard good things about the free shuttle, although there were limited runs. They did have two drop off sites -- one near the Vatican and the other nearer the Colesseum.
Let's start with some of the troubles we had. First, the first time we stayed there we stayed for two nights and had trouble with the air conditioner. Finally, someone we had met who was also on our cruise told us about a hidden switch. I actually had seen the little switch at the bottom of the air conditioning controls, but when I switched it on the light went from green to yellow and I just figured green was better. I was wrong -- yellow is the way to go. We finally figured this out and our second night was pretty cool and our return night was perfect.
The restaurant was fine. We like our food but it took a little while to figure out the system. They have someone who sits you, someone who takes your order, and then someone who comes and gets that order and then, in turn, is your server. On some occassions English was not spoken much at all, and on others it wasn't a problem. They had buffets at breakfast and at the lunch on Sunday. We ordered off the menu for dinner and lunch. We had good sausage one night, a pizza the next night, and then i had a vegetable ravioli I really liked the final night. You can also order sandwhiches and get drinks from the bar around the opposite side of the front desk.
Someone on here had mentioned that the showers were like coffins so I expected something really bad. The first two nights we had a double room and the shower was big. Our last night was in a king bed and the shower was much more coffin-like -- like being in a tube. That bathroom was very small in general, with the arrangement of the bidet behind the bathroom door, it was larger if you kept the door closed.
Regarding the elevators, I wanted to share a quick tip. When we were trying to load our 5 suitcases into the elevator, a kind staff person came by and showed us the service elevator right around the corner. So we just pushed our entire cart on and up we went. We used a bellhop to leave and he was very timely. On our return, we used the service elevator both times. I wanted folks to know about this as it is true that the elevators (2 of them) are very small.
TV is limited. Lots of Italian tv channels but only 2 English speaking -- an overseas version of CNN and MTV. In times of satellites it seems like have a few more English speaking options, especially at a Holiday Inn, would have been nice.
Check in and check out was easy and the staff was professional and helpful, although not very cheery at all. I'm not sure I ever saw one of them smile. We used a safe they have to store our passports and money and that was helpful. They also always made our cab reservations and that worked like clockwork for us. They would give you the cab number so when it pulled up you would know which one was yours if other folks were waiting.
All in all, if you want to stay in a more modern hotel and don't mind the travel into Rome, I would suggest the Holiday Inn West. (By the way -- the McDonalds and gas station is down a long hill, but it's the driveway to the hotel and therefore not as dangerous as I had pictured from the reviews here. We also saw ladies of the evening when we went to the airport at 2 a.m. -- not in front of the hotel, but on the driveway up)
Hope this helps.
