Mercure Rome Colosseum Centre

The hotel is just down the street from the Colosseum so it really offers great views, especially from its rooftop. Would love to return in the summer months to enjoy the rooftop pool and bar. The rooms have comfortable and very large beds but are rather small so it’s a bit of a challenge to walk around them. But this is a small discomfort especially on a short stay.

We stayed at the beginning of November and the weather was still wonderful. I travelled with my son, who is a student and we had a twin room. The rooms are quite small but it is in the centre of a city. The bathroom was modern and the shower was good. Nuxe hand wash and shower/hair gel was supplied. There was a hairdryer in the room but I took my own, which was more powerful. There is a kettle but again I took my own tea and coffee bags and Coffee Mate, as I read that there was no milk. There is a good fridge in the room and a bottle of both still and sparkling water there when you arrive. While my son had a snooze, I went up to the rooftop bar with a book and was taken aback by the view. You could almost touch the Colosseum. There was a pool but in November you couldn’t swim. We were only there for three nights, so tried to pack in a lot of sightseeing but also wanted to relax and enjoy it. Lots of places to visit were within a 30 minute walk of the hotel. Everywhere you go there are historical sites, monuments, churches and places of interest and if you are on a budget, so many free places to visit. The only time we used public transport was to go to the Stadio Olimipico for an AS Roma match, which I can thoroughly recommend for the atmosphere alone. We walked to the metro, then changed to a bus. Coming back, we walked as far as the Spanish Steps as traffic was bad but got an Uber after having a drink at a bar we found open late. We didn’t have the breakfast and bought pasties from the cafe next door or went out to a restaurant near the Colosseum. There is also a little cafe in the park at the back. On our last night, we went out but came back to our rooftop bar, which was still busy and an asset to the hotel. The hotel staff were lovely and especially helpful after we had checked out but returned to collect our baggage only to realsie my son had mislaid his watch. Luckily it was found in the room. We both said we would love to stay here again.

There's a reason there aren't many pictures of the outside of the hotel - there's no denying the building is a carbuncle amongst the glorious architecture and history or Rome, a city that has buildings thousands of years old, and yet here is a building that is probably only 30 years old, way beyond its best, and probably unlikely to last another 30 years. It's a building that should be somewhere else, not a stone's throw from the Colosseum. The staff seem to reflect this desire to be somewhere else - you feel they would prefer to be working in one of the classic hotels in the city, proud of the establishment in which they work. But they do a decent job, quietly efficient in reception, by the pool, or at breakfast. Let's face it, the hotel is about one thing. The view from the pool. It is unparalleled and stunning, and only seems to accentuate the craziness of the town planners that allowed the building of this architectural monstrosity! Needless to say, there's a good crowd around the pool come 5pm, you need to be lucky to grab a lounger. The pool water can be best described as "cloudy" - unsurprising as I counted 18 people in the pool at one point, and it's only about 8 meters long by 4 meters wide. Inside, the rooms are dated and scruffy. They are probably mostly clean, but it's hard to feel clean when the carpets are old and stained, and the walls are scratched and marked. It's really a budget hotel in a prime location. God knows how it gets to market itself as 4 star, its 3 at best. I guess the pool view itself adds another star.

Very good experience. A special thank you to Maria, a cleaning lady who made our stay special with her kindness and professionalism. We have a 2 months old infant and Maria made sure we could change and feed our baby as soon as we reached the Hotel before our room was ready. She was very smiling and helpful.

It was a very good experience with the hotel as it was very near to the Colosso