Residenza Domiziano

Sorry, this is a long review but if you are looking to book this place you should read this review especially if you’re travelling with young kids. Firstly, this is not a hotel. It is a guesthouse so false advertising there. It is basically an old apartment turned into accommodation. Very noisy, the rooms are relatively clean but look dated especially the toilets. Breakfast is mediocre at best and the rooms were boiling hot even with the air con on all day. I complained about this and they said they would reset the unit but it made no difference. The biggest issue happened during our last night (18/06). We got back to the hotel at approximately 10:15 / 10:30 pm. We ate at a restaurant with very slow service so we were rushing back to get our daughter to bed. The hotel provides a code to open 3 doors: - The main door that faces the road - The front door to access reception - The room door We managed to get into the building but when we tried to open the door to access reception, the keypad didn’t work. We thought there was a problem with our code so we tried to ring the doorbell but there was nobody there. Please note that they claim to have a 24-hour reception service on their website. Again, false advertising. I tried to call their number about 10-15 times but no answer. After about 10-15 minutes a Norwegian family arrived at the property and they tried to access reception but had exactly the same problem. They noticed we were there with a baby so they were very helpful. They tried to speak to some of the neighboring businesses to see if they could find an alternative number but they were unsuccessful. We were on the stairs for almost 1.5 hours with a sweaty, crying 9 month old baby who needed to sleep and a nappy change. I tried to speak to some of the other hotels in the building but I had no luck. The temperature in that building must have been between 35-40 degrees as I couldn’t stop sweating. We tried to call the hotel number again several times but again, no answer. We were so stressed and worried about our baby that we even considered looking for alternative accommodation but all of our belongings were in the room so it felt a bit pointless. We really didn’t know what to do. Eventually the Norwegian family started to bang on the door really hard and one of the guests (who of course didn’t look very happy) let us in. That experience completely ruined our day and messed up with our plans the next day as our baby slept until 10:30 am. When I complained in reception the following morning, the gentleman behind the counter said that we shouldn’t raise a complaint as it wasn’t necessary. He said something like “it’s not that bad”. I am not sure how he could say that after a horrible, stressful and somehow humiliating experience. We paid almost 700 euros for our stay. Whilst I understand it wasn’t his fault, he was very unwilling to help and didn’t show any sympathy. He tried to belittle the situation by stating that he had sent a message via booking.com saying “sorry for inconvenience”. Yes, that was it! Both his Italian and English were fairly basic so it was difficult to communicate (I am fluent in both languages). Since he wouldn’t let me speak to his manager I said: “If you don’t let me speak to the manager, I am going to raise a complaint via booking.com so your choice”. Booking.com didn’t do anything either so I won’t be using them again. The receptionist proceeded to tell me how much I owed. My wife and I were getting really frustrated at that point so we decided to pay and complain at a later stage. We just wanted to enjoy our last few hours in Rome. The receptionist eventually apologized in person and I said I accepted his apology but someone had to take responsibility for what had happened the night before. A 1 star review is a compliment. When I complained, they honestly couldn't care less.

Awful very expensive tiny rooms. Went here because they said they had laundry facilities in their ad but they didn't. Had to walk around Barbarini with my laundry to find a place. Breakfast was good and the woman who served it very nice. The guy who works at nice is abrupt and rude