"We are very sorry, we have only recently opened and we are still working some things out..."

You will hear this a lot if you stay for long at the Sheraton Golf in Rome, which at the time of writing had been open 20 days. The staff are doing the best under the circumstances, but as a guest, you'd be better staying somewhere else until the kinks are ironed out.

Arrival experience: the resort is divided into three main buildings, without proper walking paths between them, and all about 500m to 700m apart. Problem 1 is that when you book, you are not told which of these three buildings, each with it's own reception area, you are booked into. You can only find out by trial and error. I tried all three, dragging my baggage between them, before I got lucky.

There was a large conference group at the resort when I stayed for three days, and having found the right building, check-in took 20 minutes of queuing.

Services: Broadband internet in the room via cable was not working, but via wireless was. Unlike some hotels in Italy, it is an extra charge of 22 Euros per day. Connection was quite straightforward.

Unlike getting a shirt ironed. Despite the hotel services brochure stating overnight laundry service is open until 10pm, it was closed when I inquired at 8.30pm. I then asked if I could have an iron and ironing board sent to my room. This was not possible either. The only option was to use a makeshift 'ironing room' (actually a staff locker) in, you guessed it, one of the other buildings. Another 500m hike, just to iron a shirt.

Shuttle buses: There are shuttle buses to drive guests between the three buildings, but they are 'on demand' and are too few, so that waiting times can be so long you are better off hiking yourself. Other similarly spread-out resorts have regular shuttle runs between buildings and attractions, and the Sheraton Golf doesn't seem to offer it yet.

Walkways: As mentioned, the quickest way to get between buildings may be to walk, but the resort is not designed to allow you to do so. To get from my building to the building where I had to do my ironing, I had to walk through a carpark, across a road with no pedestrian crossing, and through a dark car park. I would not recommend this to single ladies.

Room appointments: are new, and comfortable, with spacious rooms as other reviewers have mentioned. The hot water in the shower has temperature settings that only seem to vary between HOT and VERY HOT, so washing my hair was a scalding experience.

Airconditioning was thankfully quiet and did not wake me from the hard earned sleep I fell into after dragging my bags all around the resort...

We stayed here mainly because we got the room on points. It was expensive as others point out, but if you are approaching Italy via Rome, it was just what we needed in terms of a restful stay before moving about the country.
It's close to the airport (which is a plus if you don't know the country and are bone tired from a transatlantic flight). They got us up to our room in record time. One note: we had done our booking online and indicated that we had two kids. That detail seemed to be missed and created a bit of a problem. But the manager solved the issue for us to our satisfaction. Do doulbe check with the hotel directly if you are traveling with kids.

We found the shuttle service to Rome via bus to be fantastic. I didn't think it too long (but then, were from a big country). Kids loved seeing the city all the way in. The shuttle drops you off within walking distance of most of the major attractions and metro system. They even picked us up when we returned to Rome with all our luggage and took us back to the hotel the night before we left Italy. We liked the service.

The room was clean and neat, good showers and a great bed (very comfortable). The staff was very helpful and accommodating.

Our kids are below 7 years of age, so this place was a very good place to relax and recharge.

We stayed here because of a conference. After spending three nights at a marvelous hotel in Rome, it was very disappointing staying here. It was a long bus ride to Rome. The food and service in the restaurant was horrible and most likely the worst we have EVER experienced in Europe. Breakfast was expensive for what little you got. The air conditioning went out in our room and we had a VERY hot night. We will never return to this hotel even IF there is another conference there.

I recently spent 3 nights at this Sheraton while attending a conference at the hotel. Overall, my impression of the hotel was that it was overpriced and not very adequate in many respects. Here are the pros and cons, from my point of view:

PROS:

1) New construction and the rooms were impeccably clean.

2) Ample breakfast although very expensive if it were not part of the
conference.

CONS:

1) Far from anything that Rome has to offer. They do have a shuttle
bus but it is a lengthy ride to town.

2) Very overpriced....eg. a 300 ml. bottle of water cost 3 euros
while it costs 0.15 euros in a grocery store.

3) The golf course is nothing to write home about....and why would you go to Rome to golf anyway? In the 3 days, we saw zero golfers.

4) Staff is moderately unhelpful which I found was unusual for Rome where generally people are very helpful.

5) Conference facilities are fairly limited. The rooms were somewhat undersized for the meeting.

In summary, I'd recommend looking around for something better if you're planning a stay or conference in Rome.