Piazza Del Gesu Luxury Suites

The good points were the location and the friendly reception staff. But this hotel is nowhere near luxurious. For a place calling itself four stars, not even bottled water was provided. The busy main road made it extremely noisy, and after a terrible first night we had to buy earplugs. Two of the three bathroom spotlights didn't work for our whole stay. The room was cleaned every day, so I don't understand why nobody reported or fixed them. The entrance up to reception was dirty and dingy. A tissue and a bird feather stayed on the stairs for four days. From the reception area onward, it was clean.

We got almost no sleep during our three nights here. From about 10 pm until 4 am, people at a bar a few doors away stood in the street drinking, yelling and playing instruments. It felt like a carnival right outside the window. I’ve attached photos and a 10-second video taken at 3 am from inside the room, about four metres from the bed. The pictures also show patrons’ cars parked on the footpath right by the window. Room 104A itself was decent, with a great mattress, but that was about the end of the positives. When we raised the noise with the receptionist, whom we only saw at checkout, she acted confused and talked over us, saying it wasn’t their fault and nothing could be done. The room next door had the same complaint, and reviews going back as far as four years describe the same problem. Stay somewhere else if you need more than two hours of sleep a night.

We only stayed one night, but ran into several problems and wouldn’t return for the price. The shower door jammed shut after I showered, which was pretty distressing until my roommate forced it open. The bathroom looks nice, but the place overall doesn’t feel close to semi-luxury, and the walls are thin enough that sound carries. The lift only goes down to the lobby, not up, so getting heavy luggage upstairs is awkward, though staff offered to help carry it. You can walk to the Pantheon and Colosseum, but there’s no metro station nearby, and Roma Termini is especially far. That made reaching other sights and the airport difficult. For a first visit to Rome on a budget, I’d look closer to Roma Termini. It’s easier to walk to your hotel than to find a taxi during peak traffic.

We finished our Italy trip with two nights here, and it was a clean, comfortable place with amazing beds. Our standard room had a fun rainfall shower with a jacuzzi, though apparently not all standard rooms do, so ask for that one. The location also made it easy to walk to the Colosseum and Pantheon. One thing to know: this is a small hotel, and the front desk is open only from 8 am to 10 pm. Let them know if you’ll arrive outside those hours. They give you a card with a code for the building, and we had no trouble getting in when we returned around 11 pm. It’s a unique place, and we’d stay again.