Daphne - Rome Boutique B & B — Hotel in Rome

Daphne Trevi is a b&b that promises a lot but keeps little.||So, I book from the Daphne website a family junior suite package with breakfast for 4 people for 6 days with 8 days in advance. I immediately receive a confirmation email for the room with breakfast. Four days later I receive another email: family junior suite with breakfast confirmed. Well, I think it's all right. ||||The afternoon before the arrival here is the first surprise: because of COVID the breakfast is cancelled and I will be refunded. But how, COVID was there even 8 days before, even 4 days before, why don't you inform me earlier that breakfast was not planned?||I'm not even told what amount will be deducted for breakfast. However, I did not cancel the reservation because it was too late to look for alternative accommodation and breakfast was not that important.||On the day of arrival I am informed of a discount of 40 (!!!!!) euro for 24 breakfasts in total (6 days, 4 people)? 40 euros for 24 breakfasts? Does that mean that a Daphne breakfast is worth 1.66 euros? For what they normally offer? From their website: "We offer fresh croissants and bread from a local bakery, and a variety of other pastries, along with butter, jams, honey and Nutella. We also serve yoghurt, fresh fruit, cheeses and local cold cuts, cold cereals, orange juice, a variety of teas, filtered coffee, hot chocolate and espresso drinks, including cappuccino and caffe latte." I would have expected a much bigger discount for these breakfasts. ||I'm not going to argue for a few tens of euros and the manager, Cesare, takes us to the reserved room. Outside it's 35 degrees, in the room too. Cesare leaves (we stay alone in the whole b&b) and we turn the air conditioning on. Air comes out of the unit but it doesn't cool down. We spent the night with the air conditioning at maximum but the temperature remains above 30 degrees: the system is faulty. It's a nightmarishly hot nightmare. We wake up, get some water that we put on arrival in the minibar: it's hot, even the minibar is faulty. We warn Cesare and at 10 a.m. he comes and we meet ourselves and our room is changed. We pack our bags and move from the fifth to the second floor where the new room is located. Here air conditioning and mini bar work quite well. ||But... in the evening we try to use the Wi-Fi: it doesn't work!||The TV is only a smart TV, it works only with internet: but there is no internet connection, so even the smart TV doesn't work. We warn Cesare and he says he can't do anything about it. So we stay without TV and without Wi-Fi for the whole stay. Beware that on the second floor the normal data traffic doesn't always work well, so sometimes you risk to stay completely without internet connection.||||We arrive at the day of departure: when we arrived we asked if we could deposit our bags until 5:30 p.m. at the reception on the last day. We were told we could even keep the room as the b&b apart from us was empty.So on the last day we went for a walk around Rome convinced that we would be back in the room around 5pm. At 11:00 a message arrived from Cesare saying that he had two other clients and that he had to give them our room. So either we took our things right away from the room or he would have them moved to the reception. At that point we were too far away from the b&b to come back and we didn't get back until around 5:00 p.m. and found our bags at the reception. The drinks we'd put in the fridge were obviously gone.||||So a nightmarish stay at this b&b:||- Breakfast cancelled the day before arrival||- Ridicolous discount for cancelled breakfasts||- First night spent in sauna room and without fridge bar||- No wi-fi||- No TV in room||- Promise to use the room even on the last day not kept||||Moreover, the elevator is the smallest elevator I have ever seen in the world: maximum 1 person. Consider it if you get a room on the fifth floor.||I strongly advise against this facility, which is run in a very unprofessional manner. In Rome most of the structures are managed by serious and correct people who care about the welfare of their customers. I'm afraid, not...

Daylight robbery by smooth talking thieves!

I haven’t ever written such a scathing review for any other property, but this experience was my first and hopefully last. I wish that other people intending to book this review learn from my experience and never book here! I paid Euro 500 for this property for 4 nights which isn’t a cheap cost, but the service rendered was deplorable.

I booked a non-refundable booking with this property for 4 nights during a visit to Rome. The check in process went on smoothly and we were able to get access to our room with no issues. That was possibly the only smooth part of this whole stay. We checked in at 2pm and by 4pm we had noticed the AC was not cooling appropriately enough and the toilet flush was not refilling and took a long time to refill, definitely over an hour. We needed to step out so I requested for an iron box, and was told no one was available to provide one to us, and we would have to wait till the next morning.

We got back at night and the AC was still not cooling and we slept the night in Rome’s summer without a functioning AC, which was a facility this property included in its hotel features. The bathroom tank was refilled this time, so we were able to flush, once. And wait for another 1-2 hours for it to refill again.

The reception was supposed to be manned at 8:30am. But no one was available until 9am (when I last went out to check), after which I sent Monika another message requesting for the iron box which we finally received at 10am. Still no assistance offered for the AC or bathroom flush.

I had informed the property that I intend to leave this property because there was no one to attend to our requests for 18 hours! Time of initial request was 4pm the previous day and until 10am the next day, I had not received any assistance with the flush or the AC. My partner and I made the decision to move out of the property and made another booking for the remaining three nights and promptly left the property. I made multiple requests for a refund to this property but of course, no one replied! I was happy to pay for the night I stayed, and even a bit more for service fees. However, they have just continued to take the entire 4 nights fee from me and not refund anything. During all this while, I noticed their property kept showing up when I looked for available rooms, which meant they had an extra room spare. All they needed to do was to shift me to a vacant room if this one had issues, but they didn’t. They didn’t feel the need to address my concerns or even assist!

I was later on informed by the property that the AC was in the wrong setting. Agreed, this could have been my oversight, easily solvable if there was someone to assist at 4pm when I first notified them. They also informed me that I broke the flush!? Because they think it was the first time in my life that I used a flush, and within 2 hours of me checking into the property, it was my life’s goal to break the flush of the property. What a joke!

I am attaching with this review the complete list of evidence I have with me including correspondences with the property. Their lack of response and assistance should warn you of their poor levels of service and their agenda to loot guests. Please save your money and do not book here. They are an unethical lot who are a shame on the good name...

This B&B is rated as 4.5/5 here and 4/5 on booking.com. I arrived at the property at the arranged time and had to wait to be granted access by the cleaner who led me up to a common area with dirty dishes lying around, doors of dirty rooms open and no common area. I was told that the breakfast I paid for would be brought to the room. There was no clean common area where breakfast could have been consumed. The cleaner rang the host and put him on speaker and I indicated I didn't want to stay as it wasn't up to the expected standard. The host said I needed to hand over my passport (which I did not) and wait there til he arrived some ten mins later which I did as a courtesy. I told him that I did not want to argue but would not be staying. He was extremely rude and confrontational and tried to argue with me about how 4 star meant something different in Rome and the location was what you were paying for there. I have travelled all over the world and have a pretty good handle on what the international standards should be. Depsite a cancellation fee being confirmed, in the end the host charged me in excess of the full amount that the stay would have cost. This was over two weeks ago and the I have been told that the host won't communicate with booking.com (through which I booked) to discuss my refund (even if I was to pay the cancellation fee he charged me 218 EUR extra). In any event I am disputing the cancellation fee as it wasn't like I just didn't show up. I did show up in good faith but the room was sub-standard. If he does not refund, I will be exploring a fraudulent transaction through my credit card provider as the amount charged doesn't relate to any invoice or confirmation I received. I had to go and find alternative accommodation in Rome on the spot- which I did. The moral of the story- there are way nicer places to stay in Rome for a similar price such as Hotel Giolli where I...