I don’t even know where to begin; but I would like to say that appearances can be deceiving, beautiful exterior, ugly interior.
I have been traveling for several days now with a tour group from London to Rome, and this is the worst hotel I have stayed in by far. Not just on this trip, but that I’ve ever stayed in. The number of issues that I have encountered with one hotel has been so high that I wouldn’t ever come back or recommend this place to anyone, ever.
We were placed in a dirty room upon arrival to the hotel, the bathroom was filthy and the floors of the bedroom were no better. There were dirty towels on the floor of the bathroom and the counter behind the toilet, and the countertop of the sink was dirty, too. There was a bucket on the floor of the bathroom that appeared to be used for plumbing issues which was discovered upon trying to turn on the faucet and having no running water in the bathroom.
After making a complaint to the front desk, who was not very accommodating and wanted to put us in a room with a double sized bed and a pull out couch due to limited rooms, before putting us in a room next door to our original one that had three individual beds. When we arrived to the room next to our original one, we came to the realization that there was no air conditioning that worked in the room, and two of the three mattresses were so thin that when you sat down, you could feel the slats of the bed frame. They were more like a cot than a proper bed. We tried contacting our Travel Director, Debra Lane to intervene on our behalf. She spoke to the hotel, and stated, "they were working to resolve the situation". This was the extent of her efforts to make sure we were taken care of, which is unacceptable, since we booked through Costsaver, and she was our direct point of contact.
The two people I am traveling with are senior citizens and cannot be sleeping in beds that have no cushioning, and I myself have a slew of health conditions that make it hard for me to sleep in a bed that doesn’t have support of any kind. We again went to the front desk to make a complaint who at this point was making even less efforts to accommodate us, where we were given a room with a double bed and a pull out couch. At this point the hotel staff was forcing us to choose a room to sleep in, and we did choose the room with the one bed and the pull out couch.
We had our own issues with the room that we were forced into. The shower was rusty at the drain, and we couldn’t figure out how to adjust the shower to the utilize the rain head which left us unable to shower. Our toilet in our third room wouldn’t even flush, either, which we didn’t discover until it was far too late to get another room.
One of the people from the tour group that did have luck with their shower made a comment that the water was so hot that it was practically scalding and couldn’t be adjusted.
We had a complimentary dinner which wasn’t high quality. The first meat that was given to us wasn’t labeled, I believe it was pork, but I was not certain. They brought out bone in chicken later on during the meal, which I didn’t eat, alongside the pasta that they had.
Regardless, it was so dry and poorly cooked that it tasted like jerky. The potatoes were poorly seasoned, the dessert was not any good, either. The dishes were not very clean either, with the silverware having many water spots and the drinking glasses had water stains and other stains on them that couldn’t be discerned if they were food stains or water stains.
I myself sat outside by the pool for around an hour before I went to bed and during that time, I found that the outside chairs were falling apart, with the plastic wicker unraveling. Some of the canopies above other chairs and tables had holes on them, too. To circle back to dinner time, while we were waiting in the lobby for our meal, we noticed a bug crawling around on the floor that one of the people on the tour ended up squishing, instead of hotel staff.
As someone that has been on a tour group for several days now, I’ve gotten close with some of the people that are in my group, and multiple people had room keycard issues. One of my colleagues had no outlets near her bed which left her unable to use her CPAP machine conveniently. This had her discovering that her sheets had holes in them that had been hidden with a towel. Another colleague had only three outlets in their room, and one of them didn’t work, which left them with only two working outlets.
The hotel also had no house keeping on staff when we arrived in the evening which meant that many of the issues that we encountered couldn’t be handled accordingly. As someone that has been traveling for a long time, I know not every hotel is the same, but my expectations always remain the same. I look for a sanitary, hygienic room, and friendly, accommodating staff. When every single one of the above are not met, I am left severely disappointed.
The only redeeming quality of the hotel was the bartender. I didn’t catch her name as I didn’t end up getting a drink as I had originally had, but my roommate that did go to the bar spoke very highly of her.
The WiFi was very spotty, especially in the hotel rooms, too.
I am willing to say with certainty that this hotel had many issues that we all experienced, and I would never have provided them with my business if I hadn’t been on the tour group. This is a one star hotel at best.