Grand Hotel Plaza — Hotel in Rome

This was our second trip to Rome and my wife insisted on splurging on a 'Ritzy' suite this time (Yes, it was my wife's fault!).

Our room was #580. The room rate we paid was 550 Euros per night (The rate card on the door was 450 Euros -- but they said that was wrong -- ???) The Problems & Defects:

1. The bed from Hell! -- Seriously, this was the very worst bed I have ever slept on in my whole life; and that includes couches and bare floors! It was like sleeping on a trampoline. Every time my wife would turn over, I felt like was going to bounce out of the bed. The 4" thick mattress had absolutely no sub-frame -- just bouncy springs.

2. The room was in a sad state of decay and poor maintenance: The white wall paint streaked onto wooden floor as if it had been painted by a child. Pieces had been cut out of the floor and replaced with ill-matching scraps of wood. The old frayed runner in hallway was bowed out of shape. While the bathroom had one of those fancy bidets, it did not have a single shelf to put one's toiletries on, which caused my wife to growl. The furnishings on our deluxe veranda consisted of cheap dodgy yellow plastic chairs, badly stained and weathered.

3. As usual, I forgot to bring my universal electrical plug, so I trotted down to the front desk and asked to borrow an electrical plug. They said they had one left and that they were going to charge me 20 Euros (They cost 60 to 80 cents in the USA.). I told them that I could buy 30 of them for that price. They replied they had to charge me that because of insurance. Whenever I asked what they meant, they always started to speak high-speed Italian.

4. The whole hotel reeked of mildew as if somehow it had suffered through a tsunami that had inundated all five floors.

5. The furniture throughout was well-worn by many decades of hard use. If you sat on a couch you could practically feel the floor beneath you.

6. For a buffet breakfast that would cost $3.95 in Las Vegas; they charged 74 Euros !!!

7. The carpeting in every public room was dilapidated, thread-bare and heavily stained and reeked of stale cigars.

The desk staff bragged how movies had been shot there -- I could only envision Stephan King doing an even more chilling remake of either 'Misery' or 'The Shinning' !!!

UPDATE: This review was first posted over 4 years ago and now, finally, they just notice it? Obviously they monitor what people think of their hotel like they monitor the quality of their hotel. The fact that they can’t find us a guest even though we described the abysmal Room #580 that we stayed in, including the unforgettable trampoline-like bed — does not surprise us. They most likely don’t keep hotel records in order to maintain plausible deniability — Which is what they are trying to do now -- after waiting four long years!

READER / TRAVELER: Be...

We stayed here in mid August and completely fell in love with the location.. it was central to most of the landmarks of Rome. It was a 5 min walk from the Spanish Steps, a 10 walk from the Trevi Foutain and the Pantheon. A 15 min walk from the Colosseum/Forum. The hotel definitely had a vintage Rome vibe with a beautiful lobby and staircase. The rooms were quite roomy, but very old. Not to many upgrades as far as furniture was concerned. The room set up were a bit disorderly. We had reserved 2 rooms that were supposed to be two bedrooms. The first room was more of a suite where you walk into a main door and two individual rooms were behind them. One of the rooms had a bathtub/shower that only had half a glass covering it so if you took a shower, water would spill out all over the floor. The second room set up had rooms that connected with a nice balcony with a seating area outside of one of the bedrooms, but the rooms were much smaller. The air vents were super dirty and needed cleaning, so the air coming out was a bit musty, but it was so hot and humid we needed it on most of the night. I don't know if I would rate it a 5 star hotel, I say maybe more a 3.5 - 4. If they maybe upgraded their rooms, it could definitely be more like a 5 star.

We stayed 4 nights here and on the 3rd night there was a "severe thunderstorm" and they were not joking when the alerts came through. I had never heard thunder that loud and water coming down in buckets. It was so bad it blew out a transformer and we had no power for a few hours the next day. The staff was extremely nice and offered up free drinks in the lobby if we didn't want to stay in our rooms. We also had a roof leak in the hallway right in front of our rooms. They were fixing it, but we checked out before they had a chance to finish.

I would definitely pick a more modern hotel if I ever return to Rome, but for location I definitely give...

I never write reviews, but to save someone the hassle, I put some time into this. After paying around $700-$800 for three nights, I expected a little more. When we checked in, they offered us an upgrade to a delux room. We were very excited. I initially thought our room was nice, had a couch, spacious, and a nice bathroom. Plus, room service wasn’t too bad If ordered, we didn’t.

The room was convenient to walk to different locations, big plus.

Negatives, The bed was a flat mattress on a platform. Kind of like a pull out couch. We are 26-27 year olds and don’t not normally have problems sleeping on a bad mattress, but this kept you up every hour.

There is not a shower in the room. You have to take a bath every time. This bathtub was very nice, but it is very inconvenient when you want to get in and out quick.

Not a huge deal because we were out of the room most days, but the TV was a 32 inch. It was high on the wall across the room and with the room being somewhat large; it was hard to view. With Rome being so hot and crowded, it’s nice to relax with the TV for a few hours, but hard to do when you only have one English Channel and it’s across the room. It would be nice to have a feature to change the primary language for all the out-of-towners.

Rome was extremely hot, so coming back to an air conditioned room would have been good; however ours didn’t work. I read on reviews this is a common problem. It appears they have not fixed it yet.

The hotel “offers” parking. It is not attached and is very difficult to navigate to. You pay $30.00 a night to drive yourself or you can valet for $65.00 a night.

The hotel was beautiful in the lobby, but I would not recommend or stay here again. It’s not convenient and not worth a five...