Colosseum Corner — Hotel in Rome

Ruined the start of our family trip to Europe. Our booking was cancelled without notice. We got one call from the property overnight (due to the time difference) and then a few days later the booking was cancelled. We weren't even aware until we coincidently logged into Expedia to check something else and noticed our hotel reservation in Rome was cancelled. We rushed to call Expedia first to get some help, they notified us that the booking was cancelled by the property and there is NO correspondence that they can see in their system. As for us, we also received NO email or text update about this cancellation. We then reached out to the property and spoke with their rep, Christopher who advised that the reservation was cancelled due to the payment method not going through. We explained that this is normal because we live in Canada and they likely tried to put the charge overnight (in Canada) due to the time difference and it probably got flagged as fraud. The normal next step would have been to contact us and authorize the payment over the phone to ensure it goes through. Or at least let us know so we can inform the payment provider to not block any international payments. The key thing to note here is that the booking was 100% payable at the property, and not in advance. If we had any idea they plan on charging weeks before the trip, we would have ensured the payment provider is notified and the authorization goes through. This is a very important point for the hotel to understand. You cannot cancel a booking based on a payment not getting authorized considering these are international payments and most payment providers are very fraud conscious these days. And if you must have the payment ahead of time, then you need to inform the guest well ahead of time OR alternatively, do NOT offer a reservation that is fully refundable and payable at the hotel. It is contradicting and extremely unprofessional. Lastly, there are some other reviews where this has happened to other guests and the hotel response mentions that they called numerous times to get payment - this is NOT true. They only called ONCE and in our case, it was overnight, hence we were bound to miss the call. And most people will not even recognize the phone number. This is why such communication is usually more appropriate and reliable through an email channel. In my opinion, this is a good strategy to give the hotel a reason to cancel the booking last minute as they can then rebook at a much higher rate during...

My husband and i stayed at colosseum corner back in February for a full week. |This is not a traditional ‘hotel’ in that it is situated on a higher floor in a building which I would assume was an apartment. There are only about six en-suite rooms. The room we had overlooked the colosseum which made it incredibly special for us. We couldn’t stop admiring the view! Despite being in such a prominent, busy location, we really didn’t find it too loud. Breakfast is by a coupon given by the ‘hotel’ receptionist to be exchanged at the cafe on the corner of the street , I’ve since discovered this isn’t an unusual thing in Italian hotels having just experienced exactly the same set-up in Florence a few weeks ago. |Our hotel room was a good size with Wi-Fi and good complimentary coffee, drinks etc. it was very clean and was kept that way for the full duration of our stay. All this worked well until one day our kettle went ‘pop’, and fused our whole room! Luckily the receptionist was on duty so was able to replace the kettle. My husband was able to untrip the fuse board so we were able to enjoy electricity again; the receptionist sadly had no idea! This replacement kettle however was also faulty and almost immediately started smoking! I felt quite sorry for the receptionist in the end! A new, fully working kettle was delivered later. |This did not impact on our enjoyment at all and I’d still stay there again, and I’d definitely...

My husband and i stayed at colosseum corner back in February for a full week. |This is not a traditional ‘hotel’ in that it is situated on a higher floor in a building which I would assume was an apartment. There are only about six en-suite rooms. The room we had overlooked the colosseum which made it incredibly special for us. We couldn’t stop admiring the view! Despite being in such a prominent, busy location, we really didn’t find it too loud. Breakfast is by a coupon given by the ‘hotel’ receptionist to be exchanged at the cafe on the corner of the street , I’ve since discovered this isn’t an unusual thing in Italian hotels having just experienced exactly the same set-up in Florence a few weeks ago. |Our hotel room was a good size with Wi-Fi and good complimentary coffee, drinks etc. it was very clean and was kept that way for the full duration of our stay. All this worked well until one day our kettle went ‘pop’, and fused our whole room! Luckily the receptionist was on duty so was able to replace the kettle. My husband was able to untrip the fuse board so we were able to enjoy electricity again; the receptionist sadly had no idea! This replacement kettle however was also faulty and almost immediately started smoking! I felt quite sorry for the receptionist in the end! A new, fully working kettle was delivered later. |This did not impact on our enjoyment at all and I’d still stay there again, and I’d definitely...