Hotel vain is a nice and trendy hotel. The location is excellent in the SOHO style Palermo neighbourhood. Staff is friendly and helpfull and the rooms are stylish decorated. The only negative thing I can think of is the airconditioning system which is centrally controlled and is a bit noisy. emiel and karin from amsterdam

We had the pleasure of staying at the Vain Boutique Hotel for 2 nights in December 2007. This hotel was an absolute gem! We stayed in one of the V Suites on the top floor, and couldn't have asked for a better experience. The room was clean, beautiful, and relaxing, with several wonderful touches like free welcome drinks, complimentary spa mini facials, and surprises like chocolates in the room daily. The a la carte items in the room are also great and relatively inexpensive (ie: wine, champagne). The staff is very accomodating and helpful, and the free internet service is a plus. The breakfast was varied, fresh, and wonderful, as are the frozen peach bellinis if you happen to stop by the bar at night! Although this hotel is a few blocks away from the main Palermo boutiques and attractions like the zoo, botanical, and japanese garden, the location is convenient enough, with several wonderful dining and shopping options all within a 15 minute walk. I would heartily recommend this hotel to anyone and look forward to spending more nights there soon!

I stayed here one night on my last night in BA and would say that it was pretty nice, but not necessarily worth the $150 I paid. The room was modern enough, but you don't have a thermostat in the room. My room was on the ground floor with no window to the outside. The other "window" looks out into the courtyard and so the place gets noisy. I was exhausted from my travels so I slept well and I found the temperature to be fine even though I had no thermostat. But I'm not sure if there would be problems with a longer stay. The breakfast was nice and the staff very helpful. I would recommend this to younger travelers but given the price, I'm not sure it's really worth it. I stayed at the 725 Continental for the rest of my nights in BA which I would highly recommend. It was only a bit more than the Vain.

My wife and I recently stayed at the Vain Hotel, and have to say we were quite disappointed with the experience. We feel obligated to provide some information to help the next traveler decide whether this hotel is right for him/her.

First, let’s start with the goods. We are in agreement with some other reviewers that the hotel staff is extremely helpful and courteous. They are all fluent in English, and were always willing to help. Also, the hotel is located in the Palermo area, and is within walking distance to some very good restaurants (e.g. don’t miss Don Julio if you are in the area. It is reasonably priced, the meat is top-notch, and the service is excellent. We went there twice and were greeted by very polite staff each time). The immediate neighborhood, where the hotel is located in, is unassuming though.

What else…

Unfortunately, that’s it.

Here are the issues that we have with the hotel:

1. Room layout. We chose a standard room, so we adjusted our expectations accordingly. However, we were surprised at how small it was when we arrived. Granted this is a boutique hotel, the room is still very small. We have stayed at various boutique hotels in the U.S. and Europe, and it was by far the smallest room. Also, I am 5’8”, and I could easily touch the ceiling by raising my arm, while standing on the floor! The bathroom has not much space for your belongings. We pretty much had to squeeze everything on the limited counter area.

2. Quality. The pictures on the website do not give justice to reality. While the exterior of the hotel is very elegant, the guestroom quality (again, we are basing it off of our standard room) is far from what ownership projected. The room is decorated with very basic furniture, similar to the IKEA type. What really shocked us was that the bed was provided with a canvas, yes, CANVAS, blanket! Although there was another acrylic blanket in the cabinet, but for reasons further discussed in “3. Functionality”, it was deemed useless.

3. Functionality. This is the area that we have the most problems with. The jobs that I have been in have required me to travel frequently. Therefore, I have stayed at hundred of hotels. As a result, I am making my comparison with a large sample. This is the least functional hotel I am ever seen. Starting with air-conditioning. When the staff showed us to our room, I asked how air-conditioning worked. I was told that I just needed to call the front desk to have it turned on…sounded strange enough already. We felt asleep that night, and felt quite warm in the middle of the night. In the morning I realized that the air-conditioning was turned off. The second night I asked the front desk how it was set up. To my surprise I was told that one thermostat serves five rooms, and the thermostat is not located inside the rooms (I found out later that it was right outside my room)! How they can design a hotel where individual guests don’t have control over cooling/heating is beyond me. The second night I had to call the front desk to turn on cooling again. Some time later that night cool air didn’t come out any more…then…some time later hot air came out! I called the front desk again and told him about the situation. He told me that the AC system was not working properly, and had notified his partner about the situation, and that it would have to be fixed the next day (which, when I checked with the front desk the next morning, no one knew what I was talking about). Fine. That night we slept with the window and the blinds open…

…which leads to the discussion about the window/blinds set up. There are two sets of blinds, the exterior wood blinds that are electronically controlled through a button on the wall, and some vinyl shade inside the room. (Neither one blocks lights out totally to begin with even when closed.) We had no choice but to leave both slightly open in order to get some cooler air from the outside. However, guests walking around on different floors can see the inside from certain angles. But there was no AC in the room….But we needed some privacy…you choose your battle, but you lose either way. Oh, did I mention the canvas blanket? For those who are unfortunate enough to never tried a canvas blanket, it is an experience of a lifetime (not in a good way in case it’s not clear enough)! Just like another reviewer had said, the hotel is noisy, unintended for the most part. You hear people walking up and down the stairs, closing doors (but it sounds like slamming due to the way they are constructed), talking, etc. By the way, you hear noise with the window open or close, just a matter of level. We have formed the habit to bring eye shades and ear plugs whenever we travel (they come in handy when you are on the plane especially), and were glad that we were equipped. We used them all three nights when we were there.

Where the hotel attempts to be hip, it fails. For example, the shower area is equipped with a rain shower head. However, the water pressure is not enough to support it. Also, the upkeeping of the bathroom is terrible. The hotel opened not too long ago, and dirty marks around the bathroom were already noticeable. In addition, the bathroom had a mildew smell which was quite obvious. Without sufficient circulation of air inside the bathroom and air-conditioning to drive down moisture, one should probably not be too surprised.

I think I am finally done with this section.

Final note. We paid a decent amount to stay at the hotel, and also based our decision on some of the positive reviews. As harsh as it sounds, in our opinion, this hotel fails at even the most basic areas. Travelers who are considering staying at this hotel should make their own judgement, and we have tried to be as factual as possible in doing this review. For us, we are just glad that we don’t have to spend another night at the Vain Hotel again.