Although the Cosmopolita's location is unquestionably its best asset, there are other reasons to recommend it. Yes, the rooms and bathrooms are small by American standards, but they are nicely decorated and well furnished. Although the hotel is located just a few feet from one of Rome's busiest and is near the very noisy Piazza Venezia, our room, which faced an inner courtyard, was quite quiet. The breakfast, which was included in the price of the room, was quite sumptuous.

Rome was the first stop on our honeymoon trip and we arrived at the hotel about 10AM. We asked for an early check-in and the desk clerk, Alessandro, informed us our room would not be ready until noon. We checked our luggage with him and went to explore the neighborhood. When we returned promptly at noon, our bags had already been taken up to our room. During our four day stay, we also had occasion to make other requests of the staff. All were attended to courteously and promptly.

If you only want to use the hotel as somewhere to sleep and take a shower, it's a great location - 10 minutes to the Trevi Fountain, 5 minutes to the Forum and 10 mins to the Colosseum. But it certainly ain't luxurious!! And the staff are a bit grim. And the rooms are compact - to say the least. The bathrooms are basic, if a little old fashioned, but clean. And we had to ask for more towels every day. But overall, for me the location outweighed other disadvantages. It's possible to walk almost everywhere from the hotel. But it's not a good hotel for anyone with mobility issues as there are lots of stairs - there was even a step in our bedroom
The hop on hop off buses stop round the corner near the Vittorio Emmanuel memorial - so it's worth getting a ticket to get a tour of the city - and it will take you to the Vatican.

Upon arrival on May 18 we asked if we could be accomodated earlier than the check-in time because of having traveled over night from the states. It was 11:30 a.m. We were sent to a room (402--avoid this one) within 20 minutes (good). The shower was so small that one of regular girth would have had to squeeze in sideways. The A/C was not working. After numerous unanswered complaints we finally settled into another nearby hotel about 11 p.m. The front desk staff member actually stood in front of the air conditioning unit and argued that it was working while I and my travelling companion were off to the side dripped perspiration. We stayed at another hotel that evening thanks to a much more reasonable young (Asian descent) front desk clerk who made these arrangements. We returned to Cosmopolita the next day and were assigned to room 336. Now we were met with bottles dropping about 11:30 each night and linen carts rolling around the courtyard beneath our window at about 4:30 a.m.

The breakfast consisted of some very tasty fair if you like ice cold (powered, I'm sure) scrambled eggs. I actually thought perhaps this was the way Italians ate this dish until the next hotel in Florence where the eggs were "real" and hot.

The first desk clerk is about late 40's early 50's, salt and pepper hair and grouchy as can be and totally impolite. He apparently was never informed as to who actually pays his salary.

All this for about $200/night. What a JOKE!! And I think the same owners also own the Mariott in Rome--perhaps this should be avoided as well.

BJS

The location is the best aspect of this hotel. This hotel was voted by Expedia as being in the top 1%--but due to the staff, I consider that a bit generous. The front desk person that checked us in seemed to think he was working at the Waldorf in NYC with his less than welcoming attitude. However, I am willing to give him the benefit of having a bad day--as he mellowed out the last day of our four day stay. One really awesome selling point was they allowed us to check in early. We were tired, dirty, shell shocked from the drive over in our death-cab and in desperate need of a cool room. Thankfully, our AC worked very well.

We had an INCREDIBLE view out of our bathroom windown of the Colliseum, the Wedding Cake building (I never could figure out the official name) and the Piazza nearby. We were very close to a bus tour line, the regular bus line and the Termini (three stops over on the 40).

The internet worked intermittantly, which really sucked, as we paid for twelve hours and only used about eight. Many times, we just couldn't get a connection to start up, but perhaps that was due to usage overload.

Overall, nice hotel, awesome location, very expensive.