Hotel Daniela, Rome

...leaving on Sunday night. Our hotel was booked on www.expedia.co.uk and I selected it based on recommendations from the website. This was our fist visit to Rome (simply fantastic) and we were lucky to have timed it for the last weekend of the month – meaning that on the Sunday a number of attractions were free to enter, most notably Vatican City, including the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter’s Basilica.

The hotel is located just out ...
...inside the city centre. The hotel is in a street parallel to a main road (Manzino) and there was little or no traffic noise. As you approach the hotel you will see a large HOTEL sign but the telling bit, ‘DANIELA’, is on the bottom and is partly obscured by trees so look carefully.

The décor throughout the hotel was surprising tasteful, with deep and dark colours and lots of red around. I noticed that all of the wall paper was textured ... more

We spent the last weekend of February in Rome, arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving on Sunday night. Our hotel was booked on www.expedia.co.uk and I selected it based on recommendations from the website. This was our fist visit to Rome (simply fantastic) and we were lucky to have timed it for the last weekend of the month – meaning that on the Sunday a number of attractions were free to enter, most notably Vatican City, including the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter’s Basilica.

The hotel is located just out of walking distance of the centre of the city and so public transport, taxis or a hired car is a necessity for anyone staying there. It is in walking distance from two different Underground stations, both on Line A – Vittorio Emmanuel and Manzino. I’m sure there are bus routes nearby but we didn’t take the bus to and from the hotel, only using them inside the city centre. The hotel is in a street parallel to a main road (Manzino) and there was little or no traffic noise. As you approach the hotel you will see a large HOTEL sign but the telling bit, ‘DANIELA’, is on the bottom and is partly obscured by trees so look carefully.

The décor throughout the hotel was surprising tasteful, with deep and dark colours and lots of red around. I noticed that all of the wall paper was textured and actually quite nice (erm … I don’t usually look at or talk about wallpaper but what can I say – I noticed it. Does this mean anything?) and the walls are tastefully decorated with nice pictures on what I would call a Roman theme (a few cherubim here, a classical painting these and a bit of religious dogma for added measure). Reception is a simple room dominated by the large, dark and glossy wooden counter. A few pot plants, a couple of low chairs and a white curtain behind which guests can store their luggage for later collection. The hotel is composed of several floors and although there is an elevator it is quite small. With the small lift and the stairs leading up to the front door I do not think this hotel is wheelchair friendly.

The service we received was quite good although nobody went out of their way for us – but |I suppose we didn’t ask them too. Their English was quite good and they were able to answer most of our questions. Having said that, the only people we interacted with were the reception staff (one of three different guys) and the lady cleaning up after breakfast who I only heard say “Coffee? Tea?” What I found unusual was that there were no pamphlets or maps or anything like that on offer – no info on attractions, services, transport or anything. When I asked reception for a map they apologised and said they didn’t keep things like that. As far as I could tell the hotel offers no additional services. This may not actually be the case but were not offered or told about any other services and there were no information pamphlets or welcome booklets in the room. The only additional service we were offered was the calling of a shuttle service to take us to the airport, which we turned down since it was way more expensive than the public transport. At the end of our stay I had to settle my mini-bar account (1 coke – 2 Euro) and they could not give me change for my 5 Euro note and so I was forced to pay for this with a credit card. Overall the service in the hotel was like the hotel itself, thoroughly average.

Breakfast was offered from 7 – 10am every day and was included in our room rate. This was a Continental Breakfast but was better than some I’ve had elsewhere. On offer there was cereal, juice, tea, coffee, hard rolls, numerous cold meats (all pig I think and I just don’t dig on swine), lovely pastries, fresh fruit and hard-boiled eggs (but only on Saturday???)

Our room was a mixture of good and bad. Like the rest of the hotel it was quite nicely decorated, relatively quiet and it did have a very nice modern and clean bathroom with a great shower. There were nice towels and freebies and toiled paper was of good quality (and you know what that means – if you don’t check out my review of Ariel House for my TP theory). The bathroom was also equipped with a hair dryer and a bidet but we didn’t use either.

BUT … there were a number of problems with the room. The worst of these were the beds. These were the worst beds I’ve slept on in a hotel. Ever. Way too soft, they were basically old style bases with wire chains supporting the mattresses resulting in no back support and a fair does of back pain. We spent the second night sleeping on the mattresses on the floor.

There was a TV in the room but all the channels were fuzzy and there was no remote control, the fridge made loads of noise so we switched it off in the night and in the morning the carpet was soaked from the defrosting ice crusted all over the freezer compartment. Also, there is no way to control the temperature in the rooms as the whole hotel is heated on a vent system which is on a timer. This meant that I was too hot when it was on and it also woke the wife up when it turned on at 5am (she is a particularly light sleeper, bless). The final thing was that we discovered a leak in the ceiling of the bathroom – water dripped down when the person in the room above us was taking a shower, although I’m sure that was something that didn’t happen every day.

All in all the Hotel Daniela was a nice hotel of an average standard let down by it’s horrific beds. A double room for 2 nights over a weekend is currently going for between £70 and £80 per night – very overpriced in my opinion. I’m afraid I don’t have the heart to recommend it and should we go back to Rome (we both threw coins into the Trevi Fountain and so we are fated to return …) I’ll look for something more central and with harder beds!
 

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