GRAND HOTEL SAN LORENZO — Hotel in Mantua

We stayed for four nights at the Grand Hotel San Lorenzo in Mantova in the second half of November 2022. We are retirees and experienced travellers. We hold the Ambassador status in the Bonvoy fidelity programme (100 nights a year); we have collected almost a thousand Bonvoy nights since joining the programme in 2010 and this year we have already spent more than 130 nights in hotels (Bonvoy and other hotels).||We are quite satisfied with our stay. Nevertheless, our experience could have been even better had some small issues been addressed.||The location of the hotel is ideal. It is right in the centre of Mantova.||The hotel has a garage about 200 metres away. But beware if you are driving a large car. We travel in our Volvo XC90 and we just made it. We think a car even slightly wider or longer than ours would not be able to make the tight turn necessary to enter the garage. Inside, the situation is better, with ten slots available for hotel guests.||We had chosen a good room: a suite with a terrace on the fourth floor: the suite San Lorenzo, which came at a rather steep price. But the room was very good. Spacious, with two small balconies from the sleeping area and an access to a terrace from the work desk/living room space.||The room had some storage space. This could be increased further if a niche in the sleeping area crying to be transformed into a cupboard was given a positive answer. The colours of the room were to our taste.||The bed was good, even if its width was at the lower range of what can be called a “king-size” bed: 180 cm. Unfortunately, the comforters and sheets were only 200 cm wide, which created a small problem throughout our stay (the temperatures had dropped significantly when we were in Mantova). ||We have difficulties in understanding how good hotels may fall short in this area. Comforters and bedsheets come in all sizes. At home, we have a real king-size bed (200x200 cm) and our comforters are 280 cm wide and our bedsheets are 310 cm wide. We bought them from the online shops of hotel chains ! And hotels have access to more suppliers than private individuals. The problem seems to be that some non-professional hotel managers are not aware of this problem.||The furnishing of the room was an example of the problem we often encounter in the hotels that define themselves as “boutique hotels”: the search for originality comes at a very high price in terms of loss of practicality. A first example was offered by the nightstands. Their surface had the same depth of one of our tablets (iPad Pro) and a width of just five centimetres more. No other shelves. No drawers. And the lamp was in the middle of these “artistic”, useless nightstands.||We had to put most of our things on the floor. We remind those who had chosen these items that a night stand is normally used to place books, telephones, tablets, watches, bottles of water and other personal items. Very often one uses the additional levels most nightstands offer. ||A second example came from the lamps on the nightstands: an original, good looking lamp. But a traditional lamp with a “bedside reading lamp” that projects light just on the book one is reading would have been much more useful ||The work desk was another example. The one available in the room consisted in just a glass plate. We highly appreciate the traditional desks with drawers. The desk drawers are very practical to store, close to the place where they are needed, the cables for the laptops and the video cameras, the chargers of the tablets and smartphones and the earphones for the Zoom/Skype conferences. And very often these “traditional desks” also have a very practical opening with numerous electric plugs. ||Do the managers of “boutique” hotels think their guests do not use laptops, tablets, iPhones, cameras and Zoom/Skype earphones? Do they believe that the bedside reading lamps most hotels offer are just a form of decoration ?||Something that had nothing to do with the search for originality, the room safe was literally useless; it was tiny, good enough for the passports and the keys of the car. Nowadays safes are essentially used for laptops, tablets and cameras. Most hotels provide safes large enough for these items. Unfortunately, this was not case in the San Lorenzo. But changing the safe to a standard one is something that can be done very rapidly.||There was no separate lighting for the work desk. This meant that I had to keep my wife awake when I was working at my laptop.||The bathroom was good; good materials, good colours. But it was a bit small. In particular, there was a lack of flat surfaces where items, such as our toiletry organizers, could be placed. We had to leave them out of the bathroom with each one taking his/her own in when going in. It would be useful if a couple of wooden shelves could be added to the one already in the bathroom.||The breakfast room was a very positive point for the hotel. The room was spacious and full of light (even if most of it was artificial). The white painted walls helped a lot. The layout of the breakfast buffet was very well done and the variety of food on offer was very generous, especially considering the low number of guests that could be expected in the second half of November. The tables had nice, white tablecloths and cloth napkins.||The hotel does not have a restaurant. This is understandable and not a real problem given the very high number of good eating places that can be found in a radius of 150/200 metres.||However, we were very disappointed to discover that the hotel did not offer a laundry |service. We were directed to a local laundry, only to find out that their delivery times were between 48 and 72 hours, not a delay most hotel guests can accept. ||Finding a laundry place with which to strike an agreement should not be difficult. Such an arrangement would not cost the hotel anything (hotel guests are prepared to pay for such a service substantially more than they pay at their home laundry) and would help significantly the guests. In any case, we do not remember having ever found in the last years a four stars hotel that did not have a laundry service. We hope this issue can be solved rapidly.||The staff, all ladies, were all extremely helpful, from those who came to the garage with a luggage trolley to those at the reception. Whenever we passed the reception, the ladies there gave us the impression of being genuinely happy to see us. The cleaning of the room was very thorough and accurate. A lady at the reception, on learning of the response of the laundry to which she had directed us, even offered to wash the pair of trousers we wanted to give the laundry at her place ! Fortunately, we had no strong need to have them washed. It was just the desire to continue to have clean spares for everything we might need. ||A good hotel. But with space for...

Mantova deserves better than this

We stayed here for a night on our way back home, and were quite simply astounded that you can find such ignorant and indifference employees (especially in a country with high structural unemployment). The worst part was the parking garage, probably built around 1910, and not once removed, where the announced electric car charger is the slowest possible model, routed from a 1950s-era power socket through no fewer than two extension cords (a huge fire hazard right there – the local Fire Brigade would probably close the entire place down, assuming there are mandatory visits and controls). The employees asked us for the keys to our car, which would not be a problem if they didn’t decide to route the charger to a neighboring Tesla at ten past midnight… and forget to lock our car again (yeah, they probably haven’t heard about Apps and other such innovations)! They also charged EUR 3.60 for the access to the traffic-limited zone of the old city – a charge which doesn’t apply to electric or hybrid cars. The employee at the front desk looked at the screenshot from the official site – and of course, neither knew nor cared. She did comment on the unlocked car with a statement that is hard to beat: “I don’t know, my shift ended at 11pm!”.

The rooms are small and dirty (used shower caps on a hanger, black hair in the shower, mold around said shower), but the air-conditioning works fine and was on in half the rooms (the outside temperature was 33C/90F, probably not enough to warrant them being turned on everywhere). That is, they were on until the timer set in – they were programmed to turn off at midnight, meaning that you will inevitably wake up around 12:30am (nicely coinciding with the alert on my iPhone about the unlocked car, one might add). This no doubt saves an aggregate of €0.08 per client stay. Chances of waking up after midnight are rather high anyway, since all kinds of noises come from inside the building (the fourth floor apparently had be redecorated in the middle of the night, presumably by the same employee who had just returned from his heroic unplugging and unlocking of the guests’ cars.

The breakfast was ok, but nothing was even remotely close to being worth four stars. The beautiful city of Mantova clearly deserves better than this questionable establishment and its ignorant and...

During our visit to Mantua as part of our 50th wedding anniversary celebration, we chose the Grand Hotel San Lorenzo across from the San Lorenzo Rotunda. A short taxi from from the train station brought us to the red carpet welcoming us. Maria at the reception desk was an absolute delight. She enthusiastically welcomed us and gave us all the particulars about the rooftop terrace, a complimentary cocktail, our daily breakfast and much more! There are 2 elevators so there is rarely a wait. Complimentary umbrellas (should the need arise), and a gelateria right outside the door! | You could not ask for a better location for sights, restaurants, or shopping. Our room was very small and rather spartan (no art anywhere) but clean, quiet, secure and with lovely toiletries. We were towards the back of the hotel so had no view. Housekeeping is quick to make up your room each day. The bathroom is spacious and offers all the amenities - HOWEVER - we found the slick surface in the shower extremely slippery and treacherous so beware!| Your mini frig offers a small selection of non-alcoholic beverages and snacks for free; alcoholic beverages are priced. Breakfast is in a bright, sunny dining room where staff is quick to take your preferred morning beverage order. (The barista is a rockstar!) Giulia and Benny are quick to bring any special requests to your table and keep the buffet well-stocked all morning. (Benny was especially forgiving when I accidentally knocked the condiments over!) The buffet offers an assortment of meats, cheeses, eggs, cereals, yogurts, breads and fruits as well as pastries and fruit pies. Coffee is made to order. Be sure to take advantage of the rooftop terrace for a lovely panoramic view of Mantua while you enjoy a cocktail or 2 from the terrace bar.| Earlier reviews reflected some issues with hospitality, the attitude of staff and even the number of plug outlets available in the room - that was not our experience. They have "cleaned house" and we highly recommend the Grand Hotel San Lorenzo to anyone planning a...