We came down from Milan to visit some friends who live in Rome. We just needed a nice clean place to stay that was near Termini (the main train station) so we could get around the city easily. We also met up with some other friends here, so they stayed here too.
Reception booked us in quickly and easily. They gave us a little key card and a little key. We all went to the elevators to go up to our rooms.
Well.... first we had to wait for the guy who was using both elevators to unload what looked like all the linen in the hotel as well as what appeared to be all the garbage as well.
Very slowly. Finally, he finished unloading enough that we were able to push the garbage bags aside and get into the elevator.
The hallways on each floor were the same: carpet that had been vacuumed, but was still dirty. Molding that was new, but falling off. Paint that wasn't old, but no scratches were covered up, so it looks, well, just kind of cheap.
The hallways are DARK. Little motion detectors set off the hallway lights while you walk down them. OK, that's weird, but I'm ok with it.
We got in the room and it was dark.... and none of the lights worked. Luckily, the maid was out in the hall and explained that we had to stick this little key into this hole in the wall to enable all the lights. (Gee, that would have been nice to know ahead of time)
Once we got in, the room was nice and clean. I had read on one of the reviews here that the beds were hard. (which I like). Wow, they sure weren't kidding!. Oddly, they weren't evenly hard... Oooohhh, it was because we actually were on two twin beds that were pushed together and held there with the sheets. Nice.
I work over the internet, so the first thing I did was to pop that network cable in and check my.... oops, no connection. I read the little instructions, "turn on the TV and choose internet", ok, I can do that.... oops... I can't. Power doesn't do anything. After pounding on the remote for a while I get about 10 TV channels, but nothing else.
Pretty soon I called the front desk and was told I needed a code. So, I paid 10 euro and got a few letters and a number to enter.... somewhere, they just kept telling me it will be "right there". OK, it wasn't. After about 20 minutes I finally had them send someone up. About 30 minutes later he arrived - and couldn't fix it. He finally said, I'll be back in 2 minutes.
It wasn't until I told the receptionist to make me a reservation at a different hotel and that I wasn't paying for current day that I actually got service. Suddenly the, "I'm sorry sir, but I've called the main office in Milan and only got a busy signal - it's not my fault", changed to "Here's a key to a new room with Internet that works."
total of 3 hours of begging.
Other than that:
the shower head kept falling off on me, but the pressure was great.
The bright lights wouldn't turn off in our entry-way... annoying.
The temperature in our room was great, but my friends had to move because their heater was stuck on. (Oh, and the water coming from their faucet suddenly turned brown. Nice)
All in all:
Location: decent
Cleanliness: decent
Responsiveness: decent
The brown water thing was kind of gross. The internet thing was extremely annoying. The twin beds pushed together (in our new room I had to do it myself!) odd.
I'd never recommend it. There are about 100 hotels in the area, find a different one.
