Hotel Barberini — Hotel in Rome

Stayed four nights in August 2019 in a double room.

The Good: Beautiful hotel, simply gorgeous rooms, amazing location that can't be beat. Check-in was painless and desk staff mostly fantastic except for one woman at front desk who is what we call in North America a bit 'salty' ;) Good wifi, comfortable beds, good water pressure in showers and a nice bathtub to unwind in, bathrobes provided but no bath slippers. Minibar is well stocked and quite cheap. Breakfast was really nice, a good view and decent selection of fruits, pastries, cereals, some cold cuts and eggs. They had some beautiful Ovolini mozzarella. There's complimentary prosecco and you can mix your own mimosas with their lovely selection of juices. Seems their best employees are the breakfast staff, particularly this lady with short dark hair who was just wonderful and so good at her job. The Bad: We had water leaking out of our ceiling on our first night. Instead of smoothly shifting us to a new room, they had an employee bring up some towels which he used to soak up the wet bedroom floor, and attempt to fix the leak for about half an hour while perched on a ladder, as we sat there, sleepy and tired on the bed in our pajamas, just waiting. Once he realized it could not easily be fixed, we had to wait another half hour as they found a room which ended up having two twin beds they had to push together and make up. As this was getting close to 10 PM at night, after a long exhausting day of travelling in from Florence with our five year old, they should have handled this better, especially as the rooms are quite small and it is rather awkward. There was no upgrade, no costs compensation, no complimentary bottle of wine or snacks, no call from the manager, N-O-T-H-I-N-G. I sent them an inquiry about their handling of this on my third day there to see if I could get an explanation but got zero response from them. I travel a lot for both business and leisure and this is definitely not how other hotels would've dealt with this. I wonder if we had been an older European couple instead of a youngish Asian couple - would this have been the experience given, waiting around a soaked floor for an hour in our bedclothes and no compensation in any form or discount given? Unfortunately, a lot my experience in Italy says it would not. The Bizarre: They advertise that there is a jacuzzi but they don't mention until you arrive that you have to pay €80 ($90 USD/$120 CAD) to use it. I've been to all kinds of hotels (from Sandman to Four Seasons) as I travel a lot, and I have never before seen that in my life - where you have to pay to use the jacuzzi in your own hotel. Like a community pool? Most hotels would not conceive of charging guests for using their jacuzzis. The salty front desk lady glared and acted offended at my shock...but I mean, come on. I've racked my brains and can't find a single instance where a hotel did that.I found that really unexpected and tacky, for an otherwise elegant hotel. They need to change that as it is just a gross policy and very out of place. Bottom line, it's nice enough so long as you don't pay more than €130 a night for a double room. Above that cost, it would...

My husband and I booked a 4-night stay at Hotel Barberini in Rome for our honeymoon, expecting a luxurious 4-star experience. What we got was an absolute nightmare.

From the moment we arrived, it was clear this hotel is nowhere near the 4-star rating it claims. The room was unbearably hot—around 80°F—and despite multiple complaints, the staff did nothing to fix the issue. They sent a small fan that barely worked, and we had to unplug the TV just to use it because there were almost no outlets in the room. We couldn't sleep at all, making our first night in Rome miserable.

The room itself was outdated and dirty, with mold in the bathroom shower. The photos on the booking site are completely misleading. The staff was dismissive and unhelpful, showing us other rooms that were equally as hot, as if we were supposed to be grateful for the "option." It was clear they didn't care about our comfort.

After a terrible first night, we decided to check out early. The hotel staff rushed us out before 2 PM, threatening to charge us for another night if we didn't leave in time. To make matters worse, the manager avoided us and only responded after we involved the booking site. His response was laughable—offering only a 50% refund when we stayed just one out of four nights, and even that was a torturous experience.

And don’t get me started on the breakfast! Advertised as a "full breakfast," it was anything but. The juice was watered down, the so-called "pizza" was stale bread with a hint of tomato, and the scrambled eggs were an unappetizing white color. They even tried to tell me that’s how eggs are in Italy. Please, I've had eggs at five other hotels on this trip and they were normal!

This hotel is a scam. It's nowhere near a 4-star experience, and they treat their guests with complete disregard. Do yourself a favor and stay far away from Hotel Barberini. It ruined what was supposed to be a special part of our honeymoon, and we were left scrambling to find a new place to stay in the middle of Rome. An absolute disaster from start to finish.

Date of stay: July 2024 Room tip: Find...

This was unfortunately the worst experience we have ever had at a hotel in our many years of travel. I have never left one negative review until we stayed at this hotel last month. Not only did they lie about a "fire" that happened in our room (when really they just double booked or wanted a better rate since it was during the Ryder Cup), but they told us to go stay in a hotel nearby even though we had made these reservations a year in advance. Once our travel agent and WhatsApp got them on the phone the next day they acme back and said that somehow "there was not a fire after all" and our room was ready later in our stay as legal action was threatened. We were forced out of a reservation we had booked, promised a spa gift-card and restaurant gift card if we stayed somewhere else (we never received them), and were blatantly lied to numerous times about our room. They will not refund the money we spent on this hotel, and legal action will be taken. One of the employees of the roof-top bar was so intoxicated and so high on drugs it took three hours for our meal to be received, and we ended up having to walk out because he could continually not remember what we ordered, and was knocking down decorations, and drinks all around us. My family has always leaned towards having grace when travelling internationally as we know there is a language, cultural barrier. Had they tried to make it right this would be a much different post. However, this hotel was the most unpleasant experience of our travelling career and we would highly recommend never...