My business contact on Parma book this hotel for me at an excellent rate.

PROS:
- room was ample, modern light, airy, clean and well equipped
- bathroom, reasonably ample, shower ok good pressure, the "rocket" is nothing extravagant nor new, fairly common in Italy, it does offer the possibility of "water massage" not bad ..., good free toiletries
- free broadband internet offered ... you have to get a user name and pass word from the desk, due to "anti-terrorists measures" of which our American friends should be well aware ... slightly inconvenient though since computer is placed in the lounge ...
- good restaurant with very good service
- parking facilities ok
- hotel fairly quiet, sound proofing quite effective

CONS:
- hotel situated outside Parma, in an industrial area and next to a very busy road .... it is quite impossible to walk down to Parma, you definetly need to take your car or get a taxi
- secular park mentionned on the web site is a joke, I have seen larger gardens
- photos displayed on the web site are showing the nice looking villa but not the adjacent rather ugly modern structure ....
- TV with lot of channels but none in English though
- breakfast "buffet" to forget, you can easily do without and you probably will feel better
- at the time of my visit, the receptionist was coaching a new female clerk, who was totally helpless and hopeless ... she first tried to take my credit card without showing me first the bill to check and as expected there were quite a few undue charges ... the receptionist had to go through the bill, lost quite some time ...
- we had a power failure at 07:00 .... hopefully not every day though .... quite disturbing when you are under the shower !!!

ALL IN ALL NOT A BAD HOTEL FOR THE PRICE I PAID

We selected the Villa Ducale based on recommendations on Tripadvisor and the supposed 4 star rating. I have a hard time believing it is 2 km. from the city center and with the busy streets you would have to cross, it definitely isn't walkable. We had a room in the old "villa" which is where, I believe, the "standard" rooms are located. Maybe the previous reviewers stayed in the "deluxe" rooms. Our room was very dark with brocade wallcoverings, very dim little lights lining the headboard and placed above the two little desks. The ceiling had dark beams, and the carpet was also very dark, giving the room of sort of creepy feel. The bathroom had fake marble walls and a tube shaped shower (shaped like a rocket with doors that slid open)--also very strange! Any time you wanted to access the internet from your room, you had to go to the desk and get a code that was good for an hour. The best part of the hotel was the breakfast which was provided buffet-style and quite good.

The hotel staff was very friendly and the room very clean.
The Villa Ducale is a little drive outside Parma, but if you don't mind, certainly worth a visit. We booked a double room incl. breakfast for EUR 59,-. Good bargains available.
Breakfast: food was good and fresh, but only one lady that cleaned up, serve tea and coffee plus make sure everything is still available at the buffet. A bit confusing and therefor if you come at the end of the breakfast time, you mind find a messy area.
Even though we had our room next to the elevator and above the entrance door, we didn't hear any noise.
I would certainly come back for another stay.

This was a nice hotel. Not sure that it compares to UK 4* standards, but it was close enough to the centre (about 8 minute cab ride / 30 minute walk). I had booked a junior suite, but found ourselves in a regular double. I spoke to the reception but they had no suites available so offered us a 50% discount and complementary dinner that night in the hotel restaurant. The hotel itself was nice enough and dinner was very tastey, but it was quite humid and the AC didnt work in our room (even after an engineer came to try to fix it). The swimming pool advertised is actually not at the hotel but at a nearby lesuire facility. We didn't have a bad stay, but we probably wouldn't go back to this particular hotel, but would go back to Parma as it was beautiful.