Please don't make the same mistake I did and stay at this hotel.

During our a recent trip to Italy, my husband and I needed a hotel to sleep in for 1 night before our flight back home. Florence was the last city we visited during this trip but we had to go back to Rome the night before, as our flight was leaving from there. As we were going to be in Rome for literally 12 hours only, we thought we'd book a hotel near Termini station. I selected this hotel based on the okay reviews on Tripadvisor.

I figured it's 12 hours, we'd be sleeping most of the time, so how bad can it be? Well, very bad indeed.

After we checked in, we were showed to our room, a tiny box which had no ventilation whatsover. After unpacking we tried to turn on the heating/aircon and found it was not working. I called the front desk and advised them that there was no ventilation in the room, and that the heating/aircon was not working, and could they please send someone up to take a look at the unit. The woman at the front desk insisted that "it's working" - I assured her it was not - she kept insisting, I kept telling her it wasn't. Finally she relented to sending someone from maintenance to have a look.

After fiddling around with the switch for 20 mins., the maintenance guy confirmed that the unit is indeed not working. He said he was going to go into the other room and see if the issue was a switch. Fine. 30 mins later he has not returned. I called the front desk again and asked them where the maintenance guy was, as by this time we were suffocating in the room (opened the room door). She said she was going to look for him, but that she knows that the unit is working. Once again I told her that it was not working and maintenance guy was actually going to find out what the problem was. Anyway, an hour later after much frustration, I got maintenance guy - who eventually came back up to our room - to confirm with his colleague that the unit indeed was not working. He left and we were left there with no ventilation.

I called front desk and asked to be moved to another room since we cannot stay in this one. They said they will call me back. About half an hour later they still haven't called back so I called again - this time extremely frustrated - and it was only then that she said fine, we'll change your room.

We were then shown to another room, which had a working heating/airconditioning. After we unpacked again, we noticed a really bad sewer smell coming from the bathroom. We checked the bathroom, it was fairly clean but had this horrible sewer smell. At this point it was late in the night, we needed to sleep and so we just decided to keep the bathroom closed the whole night instead of moving again.

The bed linens were clean but for some reason had a bad smell to them.

The next morning when we had to take showers we noticed that there was no door to the shower!!! It looked like there was one previously but was taken down. So water from the shower got everywhere in the bathroom when you took a shower.

Needless to say, our stay at this hotel was an aboslute disaster. I am writing this review so that other people don't make the same mistake I did. I am sure there are other cheap hotels out there with much better service and facilities. Stay away from this one.

Visited Rome for a very short break (one night, two days) with my brother and two friends. We had three rooms between us and none of us had any complaints.

My room was a good size, with a large shower cubicle and good flow of hot water. Flat screen TV with satellite box. Tea & coffee provided with a kettle and free soft drinks in the mini bar (a nice touch when one remembers that most hotels charge silly money for mini bar items!).

I rarely sleep well in strange beds and I have to say that I fell to sleep virtually straight away in my bed. Whilst this may have been a result of all the walking that day, suffice to say the bed was definitely more comfortable than most hotels of its class.

I saw one other room and it was larger than mine, but had a smaller bathroom and shower cubicle. My brother's room evidently had a bath with shower over.

Check-in was very slow - they don't seem to have a very organised system.

Breakfast was fine with a reasonable assortment of cold foods. The coffee was lukewarm and pretty mediocre and, having read another review here AFTER returning, I have to say that there was no evidence of being able to order espresso, capuccino, etc (the hotel bar does not serve coffee at all). The scrambled eggs looked 'strange' and the crispy bacon was very greasy and in tiny pieces. Excellent bread!

When all is said and done, I'd definitely recommend this hotel and would stay there again. Good value for money (we paid 100 Euro and 110 Euro for two superior doubles and 85 Euro for a standard double. I feel it's worth the extra for the superior rooms).

I stayed at the Ariston during last New Year's eve (from Dec 3 to Jan 4) .
Although I think this is more of a 3* rather than a 4*, I would recommend staying a this hotel. The staff is very helpful, breakfast is quite nice, wifi internet is free, and above all, the location, close to Termini Station is great to move around Rome (2 metro lines cross at this Station and the trains arriving from Fiumicino stop at Termini).
Two complaints though:
1. The room I stayed in, was really, really small (my travel case when open, prevented me from getting to the bathroom)
2. The price, because as i told before, this is more of a 3* rank. But to be honest, I don't know if you can get a better value at this location.

In brief: it was a nice stay.

I've just read the two negative posts about this hotel. I think they've got the wrong hotel.

We booked this hotel from the reservations booth at the Termini Train station. Less than 1 minutes walk away.

We we arrived the receptionist was very friendly, we even received a complimentary drink at the bar. This hotel is the boutique variety. 2 lovely sculptures in the front entrance.

The room we stayed in was on the 5 floor, it was the best room during our 10 day visit. We stayed here for 2 days. The room was very clean with a plasma TV/satelite system. Free mini bar, a massive shower it was HUGE. In fact the whole toilet was HUGE!!!. This is a truely fantastic hotel. I would recommend it to anyone. Not the best location but only 2 minutes walk to the metro, then within 2 metro stops your at the spanish steps/or trevi fountain. In fact you could probably walk to them from the hotel. There's a lovely little restaurant directly over the road from the hotel, can't remember the name but food was very nice and cheap. I would visit again. Great hotel.