Black Hotel Rome — Hotel in Rome

I should be upfront: we paid £30 a night as part of a Ryanair package. For that money, I think the hotel is OK. But I've just eaten the worst dinner of my life there. Tastes were good and the pasta was perfectly al dente... But everything - and I mean literally everything- was stone cold. The waitress offered to reheat my selections from their €15-a-head smorgasbord, but I didn't really fancy a microwave-blast special, so declined. No offer of a refund or discount, natch.

The room was apparently clean and comfortable... Eventually. We walked in to a tropical 25°C and the control refused to lower it to anything less than 22°. However, we asked the receptionist and from his central console, he was able to give us the 19°C minimum we were after. However, the room is still rather warm at 21° and shows few signs of going lower, so I have to rate the air conditioning a bit of a failure.

Not sure why I had to plug in my own minibar fridge and the bedside lamp... Seems a tad mean to have to kick these things off on your own! Something I might have expected from a seaside bed and breakfast in the UK in the 1970s when the landlady was keen to save every penny. Not what I expect from even a cheap hotel these days, though.

The bath/shower combo is dodgy too. It's one of those joint things, where you lift a knob for shower, lower it for a bath. Except that fully lowered for bathtime, the shower head still sprays water everywhere... Including on top of you as you try to bathe. Not ideal if you fancy reading a book as you luxuriate!

The location is dire. We knew it was a 25 minute walk from Aurelia metro station. But up a main road with no pavement/sidewalk? Damned risky! There is a shortcut down to the local supermarket, past piles of rubbish, overflowing bins, and basically through the grounds of the nearby Midas Hotel, but it's not easy to find and you need to be fit to enjoy the hillside hike. Basically, think a seedy slum area you wouldn't particularly fancy walking around at night on your own. Having your own vehicle would seem to be pretty essential.

For £30 a night, it's nevertheless passably Ok. But I wish we'd splashed a little more cash for something actually acceptable. If you're paying more than £30 a night, I'd say you're probably being had and you should look elsewhere. Under no circumstances would I suggest you eat there - unless, like me, you're a diabetic who hasn't eaten in 12 hours and is getting a bit desperate.

I haven't experienced rude staff or receptionist: rather the opposite.

I can't comment on most of the hotel facilities as we have no interest in using them; but the hotel WiFi is free, functional and seems of reasonable quality and speed (we're on the ground floor, though, so that might be a factor).

There are no tea/coffee making facilities. There is no long-life milk in the fridge. No biscuits. There is one English language TV station (paramount film channel). There are no English subtitles for the other 400+ Italian language channels: if you can't amuse yourself, you will be disappointed. Very limited clothes storage space: several coat hangers in the open and two tiny drawers. There is an in-room safe, which was fit for purpose. The toilet has an interesting collection of stains. Save your tiny bottles of shampoo: they weren't renewed after the first evening.

Short version : it's simultaneously pretty grim and passably cheap. Lose the cheap, however, and it's not a place I'd ever want...

We booked this hotel as a package through love holidays as a family weekend break with our older teenage children. |The hotel is 30 mins from Ciampino airport not the stated 60 mins on the website-that’s as good as it gets I’m afraid!|Staff extremely rude, inattentive and clearly not fans of the English clientele!|Bathroom mouldy, shower tiny (supposed wet room), walls have scuff marks all over and have clearly not been painted for some time, only one pillow available and bed is a thin mattress on an MDF board.|Downstairs rooms we stayed in had no terrace/balcony and next to restaurant which was separated by a piece of MDF (noise begins at 6am when they are setting up for breakfast and ends at midnight when what felt like the staff chose to have their catch ups outside the door of our room well passed midnight every night.|Air conditioning controlled by the main reception which only works for 4 minute blasts, the weather was + 30 degrees for the duration of our stay and our room had no opening windows.|Centre of Rome is not the stated short distance but is 30 mins in a taxi which costs 30 euros each way|Bus stop is the other side of a dual carriageway and is around a 15 minute walk, you would then need to get to the metro and navigate that to get to the tourist destinations.|The shop is not the stated 100m away and more like 1 mile along an extremely unsavoury area littered with what I will describe as used male contraception amongst lots of other rubbish!|There is NO gym as stated, the staff were extremely rude when questioned on this fact!|The pool opened on the second day of our visit and is very nice-when open! There is also a weird rule that to enter the pool you need to purchase a swimming cap from behind reception for 3 euro each!|Bar not open until 6pm-that’s if the bar man decides to turn up and the reception staff refused to serve us until he did turn up at around 7pm, staff also note down against your room number what you have bought from the bar-bizarre!|No fridge or tea and coffee making facilities in the room|Breakfast is awful-a few pastries, some coffee and watered down juice|Wi-Fi non existent, you can get some signal if you sit by the pool-which as I stated is not always open and locked with a bike lock.|I might add that I’ve never ever complained about a hotel we have ever stayed in around the world but I would hate for another family/group to have the same experience as us. |This is allegedly classed as a 4, it is a 2 at a push! Avoid, avoid,...

My dad, together with other doctors from the Philippines, checked in Friday evening at this hotel for a convention thay had to attend. They were told that they were in a 4 star hotel. On Saturday early morning, they all left for the cardiologists' convention, which lasted the entire day. When they returned to the hotel at night from the convention, 3 of the doctors were appalled to realise that their room was broken into. Their luggages were opened, money all gone, including 6 thousand pesos (Philippine currency), credit cards all taken, and other personal belongings. What was more disturbing was that the door seemed undamaged. It was an extremely CLEAN ENTRY. Inside job? Most likely. They complained to the clerk/staff at the lobby but was told that it could not have been their cleaners because their cleaners have been there for ages and they had many many many more excuses. The staff member that they approaced did not appear bothered by the situation and did not show the slightest bit of sympathy. They all went to the police station the next day, stayed there for hours, got questioned, and left with absolutely nothing. The police officers made it appear that they didn't know how to speak english, thus was making it extremely hard for my dad and his companions to communicate with and file a decent complaint. So nothing was done, not even an apology from the hotel. PLEASE DO NOT STAY IN THIS HOTEL. They also stole from a Swedish doctor. Nothing worst than a hotel that steals from you. Good job Black Hotel! Extremely appalling and disgusting service. The hotels in the Philippines are truly a much safer place because if you check in a 4 star hotel or even just a 3 star hotel, you don't get treated the way my dad and his companions were treated. Such a shame. NO STAR FOR YOU if it was...