Best Western Blu Hotel Roma

The cheap price makes it hard to complain too much, but you get what you pay for. It's near central Rome, about a 15 minute walk from the metro, and a cheap place to sleep. The room wasn't great: no AC, and with the window open, the curtains stayed open too. Street lights were blinding and trains made noise all night. The beds, pillows and blankets were uncomfortable, the fridge didn't work, and breakfast was expensive.

We stayed one night at the BW Blue as part of my cruise tour, and the front office staff were rude and unhelpful when we asked about laundry. Nobody told us the side door was closed, then they laughed when we tried to go out through it. I found the front office behavior very unprofessional, see picture. It seems management doesn't address this kind of unreasonable conduct. I was asked to remove my post about this very unpleasant experience.

There was constant irritating noise in my room at night, mostly from the upper floor and sometimes from the same floor. It sounded like machines running or work being done around midnight. After a long day touring, any guest wants a calm night's sleep, at the very least. The arrogance and unprofessional behavior I mentioned was on the phone. Getting a response to emails from the hotel was difficult, as the email threads may show. I agreed to the additional charge per person per night they requested, paid it that same day through the link they sent, and emailed the transaction details right away. I only wanted confirmation and details of the revised booking, but I couldn't get an answer. When I called the desk, sometimes they said they couldn't reply only to me because they had hundreds of emails to process. Other times the relevant person wasn't available and I was told to call back in an hour. Then he had gone to lunch, or was in a meeting. When I called the next day, I was told he was on leave. This went on until the afternoon of my check-in date. Only when I called that evening did they say I could come that day. No confirmation email with the booking details ever arrived. They can check, but the last email I got was only the payment link. That really shouldn't be how this works.

The hotel isn't right in the center of Rome, but buses and Tiburtina metro station, around 1km away, connect it well to the center. My room was always very clean and the staff were very helpful. I especially can't thank the night receptionist Andrea enough. He greeted us and gave us really useful tips, even though we checked in and out late at night.