I stayed there twice. The first time for 5 nights in Dec. '06, & the second time for 4 nights in Dec. '07. The price then was over $50 plus taxes. I see that there rates have gone up. I was a single female traveling alone & managed the bus & the metro by myself. The hotel is suberb, lovely really. The room looks like the website. A single bed up against the wall, a closet, built-in desk w/ a TV, floor to ceiling glass door that opens onto a balcony. Bathroom had a shower, small sink, toilet, & heated towel rack. Immaculently clean. I ordered pizza take-out from a little place down the hill. Very good. And, I ate once at the restaurant that they recommended. Very good, as well. It's true, that they have a bar, but no "bar scene." I had trouble buying bus/metro tickets the first time I stayed there. The tobacco shop couldn't understand, so a lady in another shop, who spoke English, wrote down what I needed. The bus was tricky & confusing. I got off at the wrong stop & was very confused & actually started crying, walking around, late at night, in the dark, in a residencial area, having no clue where I was. I asked 2 nice Italian men for help & they drove me to the hotel. The next time I will stay near Termini Station, since I know Rome now. But for the price, I went on tours all day, through Viator, Green Line Tours, so I only had to find where the tour office was, on Via Ferini, off of Via Cavour. On the long, all-day tours, they picked me up at my hotel. I was pretty tired after my all day touring & the hotel suited me just fine. The residencial area was nice & quiet & safe. True, the staff were a little cold. They could do a better job w/ a map, or even if possible to sell metro/bus tickets. It was an adventure getting to the hotel. Taking the bus from the hotel to the metro was OK. It was getting back that was confusing. The first time I took the metro from the bus stop, I was confused, too, & a nice Italian walked me to the metro stop. After that I had it no problem. Since the price went up, I wouldn't stay there again, related to the hassle factor. And I now want to explore other areas of Rome & not just the tours. Oh yeah, the Viator airport transfers & taxi cabs did not seem to like going to this hotel as it was quite a ways off. I always had a marked map showing where it was, which I think helped a lot. Yet, the airport tranfers always wriggled their nose up & the cabs didn't seem happy either. Tipping well seemed to alleviate their discontent. The hotel also offers its guests umbrellas for the day, which is nice, & I used them on several occasions. Didn't try their shuttle.

The hotel and rooms are very clean. is def 4* as rated. it is far from the city centre. the hotel offers a free shuttle to the city...but on has 8 seats which you need to book in advance. Taxi costs around 15-20 euro one way.

The female staff are unfriendly on the front desk. Not once did i see them smile in the 5 days i was there and were not helpful at all. Paulo on the front desk was extremely helpful, very welcoming.

The air conditioning in the room is not great and the reception area has no air conditioning. in the shower the water leaks onto the floor.

There is no iron facility and the hair dryer provided hurts your hand.

it does get noisey as the hallway has wooden flooring, so people walking with shoes can be heard clearly and the cleaners are not considerate when they start cleaning at 7.30am a lot of banging.

My wife and I stayed 4 nights in mid-June 2008. Our primary reason for choosing this hotel was its proximity to another hotel where family members were staying (in order to meet up with them daily). That said, I don't understand when reviewers weigh location so heavily against a hotel--it's not as if the hotel changed locations before you arrived. You know in advance where they are, and you can look them up on Google Maps, multimap, etc. A little research goes a long way!

This hotel is indeed not very close to the central tourist area, but the price reflects that. My wife and I were regularly able to walk 10 minutes to Balduina station and take the light rail to Trastevere, or transfer to the Metro at Valle Aurelia. For anyone who has used big city transit before, this is not a big deal. We were in the historic center within 30 minutes each day. A ticket costs 1 Euro, while lesser hotels in a "better" location are often an additional 50 Euros or more per night. You can do the math...

PLUSES:
1. Excellent and friendly desk staff, especially Paolo. All spoke very good English and most were extremely helpful--you could transfer this staff to the Cavalieri Hilton (EUR400/night) and they would fit in perfectly. We were very impressed with their professionalism and work ethic.
2. Clean rooms with plenty of information available.
3. Good closets and lots of shelving space
4. Very good breakfast staff, plus a pretty good breakfast. The eggs were marginal, but the cold meats, cheeses, yogurts, coffees and pastries were all very good and filling.
5. Free parking and exercise room (we did not use either one, but worth noting)
6. Bellboys were VERY quick and helpful.
7. Common areas were fairly clean and well maintained.

MINUSES:
1. The air conditioner in our first room stopped functioning after a few hours. The replacement portable A/C required the window be left open for the exhaust hose. It rained that night. Not very pleasant. However, they were able to move us to a new room the next morning.
2. The wallpaper in both rooms was peeling, though not excessively so.
3. Upon check out, the desk clerk insisted that my credit card would not work (this would have been the first failure in 9 years, including 5 trips abroad). I ended up having to walk nearly 30 sweaty minutes round-trip to the nearest ATM to find cash to pay the bill. I am almost certain that this was a ploy to get me to pay in cash; if not, it sure is an odd coincidence. I used the same card without problems for two additional weeks in Italy. This particular desk staffer had a bad attitude in general, nothing like the other two we dealt with during our stay.

If the key statistic is "Would you stay here again?", then the answer is definitely YES. Even if I wanted to stay closer to the historic center, I would still consider staying at Zone and making the transfer into town each day--I doubt you'll find a better experience for the money anywhere in Rome.

Hotel is clean but the service leaves a lot to be desired. On the good side, they have free underground parking and provide a free shuttle to downtown if you sign up--only seats 8. Don't count on it being ontime, no guarantee of a return trip either if full. This hotel is far from downtown. Our problems were with the a/c. It was hot and the air didn't work well. They ran out of most everything for breakfast on our second day because 'a large group came in ate it all'.The desk clerk told us they were full (they weren't) and wouldn't change our room when we had a/c problems. Requests for restaurant recommendations were met with only 1 choice by the desk man. We had a car but he wouldn't recommend any other place--odd. The keys are cancelled anytime the hotel staff comes in to change a bulb or to try to fix the a/c. The don't tell you this either. No hot water one day. After 3 days, we had surprises everyday--not the Holiday Inn. Minus the sarcastic desk man, the place is tolerable. Not the worst place I've been to, but close.