Hotel Caravaggio

The location was perfect, and both the room and the welcoming atmosphere made for a great stay at Hotel Caravaggio in Rome. A special thanks to Mido and Honey at reception, who were so kind, helpful, and made me feel well looked after. I'd happily stay here again and recommend it. ❤️🤌

The hotel was fairly cheap compared with others and close to the town center. We booked online, then had to pay an extra 45€ for city taxis. Our room wasn't ready at check-in, and when we finally got in, the floor was still dirty and dusty. Housekeeping came early in the afternoon, around 15:00-16:00, which didn't suit our plans because that's when we wanted to come back and rest before heading out again. The rooms weren't very soundproof either, and we could hear everything the people next door were doing.

The cleaners did a good job tidying the room every day, and it was generally clean apart from what looked like black mold in the shower. As a base, it worked well enough, but this odd little hotel inside what seems to be an apartment complex isn't a 3-star place and I wouldn't book it again. You can hear everything the person next door says. We booked months ahead and had told the front desk twice when we'd arrive. We also said we needed to leave our bags before check-in. We dropped them off around 10 a.m., then were told there was a strict 4 p.m. cutoff. If we didn't get back by then, we couldn't check in or get our things until the next day, which would've left us stranded. The website said check-in was at 4 p.m., so we said we'd arrive between 4 and 4:30. Why the hard cutoff? I think the employee wanted to leave early. The employee seemed fine, but we're two women in our early 20s and got a really weird vibe from him. We avoided him for the rest of our five-day trip. The room was much smaller than the website photos showed. The shower walls had what looked like black mold, and the toilet was broken. They'd made a strange string-pull setup to flush it, and by the end of our stay the string was so frayed it broke.

The location is great, and the staff were attentive and helpful, but the room felt below what the price should get you. There was black grime in the shower that came off when I rinsed it with the shower head, so it didn’t seem to have been cleaned very thoroughly. The AC also didn’t work. Since we were there in October, we could leave the window open, though I can’t imagine that would be comfortable in another season. I didn’t raise these problems during the stay because the front desk employee we dealt with was so intense and intrusive that I preferred to put up with them. From the moment we arrived, we were told we might have been charged if we’d come later, even though we’d shared our arrival time two weeks beforehand. We were asked to pay the city tax by card, but when I asked to pay cash, they told us to settle it the next day. When we went downstairs the next morning to pay with the same card I’d already offered, we got the same condescending attitude. Everything seemed to be a problem, as if they were doing us favors the whole trip. We left our luggage at reception before checking out. After we finished and got the receipt, I was asked why I looked sad and lonely. That felt incredibly weird and inappropriate. When we came back for the bags, they said they’d expected us an hour later, even though that was the time we’d agreed on and there was a check-in then. At the end, the staff member emphasized that I should leave a positive or negative review. The hospitality felt forced. This didn’t affect our time in this beautiful city, and I’m sure the room might have been fine if we’d raised our concerns, but that request to review was made very emphatically.