We're don't choose hotels for a luxury, boutique experience and until this trip have selected them mainly based on price, cleanliness and location above all else. So when we read some negative reviews about Hotel Smeraldo, we decided it would be fine. It's in a great location (the Pantheon neighborhood of Rome), a reasonable price considering, and recently has been renovated. But it was truly uncanny how ridiculously dismissive every single member of the staff was, as if they had absolutely no time or patience for us.

We split our stay in Rome, and therefore stayed at the hotel in early and mid-May; every encounter with various staff - particularly those at the front desk - was exactly the same. We had to laugh about it. When we had an issue with our room on the second half of the trip (first floor room smelled like sewer gas so we asked to be relocated), several staff members acted put out by our request for a change.

Having stayed nowhere else in Rome, I hesitate to say I wouldn't recommend what otherwise is a well-managed, clean hotel with modern bathrooms, etc., but wow, this crew has the market cornered on attitude, and certainly didn't add an ounce of charm or warmth to our stay in the glorious city of Rome.

I stayed in this hotel for 3 nights as part of a 2 week trip for our anniversary. I have been to Italy several times and I always like to stay near the Campo dei Fiori, but I wanted to try a new hotel since my last one left a lot to be desired. For the most part, I found the Hotel Smeraldo to be just fine. The room was nice, it was in a quiet location near everything, and for the location, I thought it was a very good value. However I think the breakfast the hotel offers at 7 euros, is not a good value. We opted to buy pastries at the bakery across the street from the hotel for 1 euro each and have cafe latte's at the cafe across the street for 1.5 euros each. We would spend usually less than 7 euros total for breakfast rather than the 7 euro per person the hotel charges. If anyone needs any fruit, there is an open air market in the campo dei fiori nearly every morning and the produce was wonderful!

One word of warning: The hotel turns the power to your room off when you leave, and when we returned our first night after dinner and a night walk through Rome, the power wouldn't turn back on in our room. The man at the front desk tried to tell us it was our fault that we had plugged something in wrong and shorted the room out. We had not plugged anything in at all, we had literally dropped our luggage off and left for the day. We were eventually moved to another room, but while I was packing up my luggage in the dark (I had hung up some dresses in the closet for the wrinkles to fall out), the man at the front desk rung the room phone and asked us why were not coming down and we were wasting his time. I told him we were packing and would be down shortly and he said he didn't know what we were saying but to come down NOW. We were moved into what I assume is the handicap suite on the main floor. It was slightly larger and had no stairs, and we were fine in that room and the staff was fine from then on. But it was a bit annoying at the end of an evening when you are exhausted to have to change rooms, pack in the dark, and then be blamed for an electrical shortage there is no way you could have caused.

But that event aside, I think I might stay here on a return trip, I will just bring a flashlight next time.

This hotel is your basic hotel recommended by Rick Steves. Location was excellent. Rooms were clean, but shower was small. This is pretty much the norm in Europe though and I am pleasantly surprised whenever I do get a bigger shower. Service was so so, depending on who was at the reception desk at the time. Breakfast was decent.
If you are not into luxury and you just want a clean room and a shower with hot water, then this hotel is for you. After all that's what we needed and wanted. Rome was waiting for us to explore.

Good location, but walls are paper thin, and the water pipes regularly and loudly proclaimed someone above had either flushed the toilet or was taking a shower. Fairly helpful staff.