Hotel Quirinale Rome

This hotel is very conveniently located ... close to the Colosseum, Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, excellent shopping and the train station etc etc etc. The breakfast is very good and if timed well, you probably won't need another meal until dinner. The opera house is located right next door. Rooms are large and our bathroom was absolutely enormous! Don't know if all are that way, maybe we got lucky. Staff is very helpful and spoke enough English to head us in directions we wanted to go. I'm a travel professional and suggest this property to clients looking for a nice hotel with a great value.

I stayed at this hotel in February 2004. It's on a busy main shopping road, in a good location. However Rome is alive and never sleeps so there will be traffic noise! The room I stayed in overlooked the main street and as it was February, although not cold, I could and needed to close the windows. The air con is useless so to stay in summer would be uncomfortable - noise or heat. The restaurant is great, with good service and as Rome is not Italy's culinary capital, I discovered its best to eat there. It is a stylish hotel and American's take note - It is not the Europe is old and we do things differently here!

While the location was convenient, and the appearance of a XIXth century Grand Hotel was not unpleasant, the first three nights of our stay we were confined to a room in the fifth floor where it was impossible to sleep after 6:30 AM because the laundry carts were really noisy, and the people that pushed them too, and the elevator they used caused terrible vibrations. After vehement complaints we were offered to move to an incredibly small room, but we preferred to wait until a nice room overlooking the courtyard was available, and that was a whole different story. It was a great, beautiful room. The service at the front desk was probably quite used to complaints such as ours and they responded with statuesque restraint. Be sure your travel agent gets you a decent room or find a different hotel.

Having stayed in a World Resorts Hotel in Lisbon which lived up to it's 4 star rating, we decided to try the Hotel Quirinale last month. We were quite shocked to find ourselves on a floor that was being refurbished. The only chair in the room had a large stain on it, the top of the toilet had a crack with rust running down it, and the shower head just dribbled. All the floors are planked and creak when walking on them. The furniture described as "antique" was scratched. At 8 AM every morning, the cleaning carts would begin their procession down the hall outside our room waking us up. The walls were paper thin. The revolving glass door to enter the hotel was scratched and beaten looking. The interior was far better. I agree with another reviewer that the help on the desk was just short of being rude, or perhaps disinterested. I filled out a complaint form and received a letter in the mail that sounded pretty much like a form letter.

Considering the busy commercial location of this imposing structure, right on the Via Nazionale, we were pleased to find that our room had been recently renovated, with comfortable furniture and an excellent bathroom (tub with shower). The interior courtyard is a pleasant oasis for breakfast & lunch. The only drawback - the staff, although competent, seems to think that they are a somewhat superior species, compared to their guests. Questions were answered in an impatient, condesending tone. Location is good for central/eastern Rome, close to Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Maria Degli Angeli, Termini station, Trevi Fountain. A long hike to Pantheon, not convenient to Vatican. Overall, a pleasant experience.

This hotel is well situated for use of Rome's excellent bus and subway system. The rooms while old, built in the 1800's, are comfortable. The morning buffet breakfast is good by European standards. The hotel is is in a busy area of Rome and hence can be noisey at night. However, the windows are soundproof when closed. We have always found the staff to be heilpful. We have stayed at this hotel three times in the past three years and will be going again this March03. If you insist on a modern American style hotel, the Quirinale may not be for you. If, however, you would actually like to feel that you are in Europe instead of Kansas City give it a try.