Hotel Santa Caterina Siena — Hotel in Siena

We recently stayed for 6 nights at the Hotel Santa Catarina (Room 21).

We had been impressed by the very favourable reviews and selected it accordingly.

Sadly this hotel fell far short of our expectations.

Firstly the positives of which there were a few:

The location is handy for getting into the city and yet being just outside the city walls.

The afternoon concierge guy was extremely pleasant and helpful.

The parking for which you pay a supplement is useful.

The negatives:

The aircon is not up to dealing with the mid-summer heat. Even constantly on full it only just manages to keep the temperature bearable.

On check in we noticed that the aircon made a rattling sound on high setting. We informed the front desk and were told he would look at it. On returning to our room all he had done was put it on a lower setting. Hence we couldn’t sleep due to the heat and noise. We did get a fan from the night concierge but it didn’t cool the room.

Next day to be fair the manageress had an engineer fix it to stop the rattling. And she described in detail how much time and effort it took to achieve the fix - we were suitably grateful.

Still the aircon was barely sufficient. At no time was it possible to open the window - so there was really no point in booking the premium room with a view as we never saw it. Also we couldn’t leave the door open between the vestibule and the bathroom as these areas were boiling hot.

The bathroom had a serious issue with the drains. It smelled so bad, even though the cleaners did their best with bleach etc. And we were unable to open the window in the adjacent vestibule to ventilate it due to the heat. Owing to the heat and smell it was impossible to spend anything other than a few minutes in the bathroom. It was antiquated with a poorly fitting shower door and a toilet which didn’t flush.

The reviews we read were very positive about the breakfast. Sadly this too was a disappointment. The garden was full of mosquitoes and wasps so you couldn’t stay long and the tables were never cleaned. The same coffee stains were there day after day. There is just rough industrial aggregate under your feet which the mosquitoes seem to love.

As for the breakfast itself it was an incredibly poor offering. You had to ask for everything from a server behind the counter. Apart from one lady they were extremely stony faced. You had to ask for each piece of rationed stale bread one at a time, each tomato, slice of ham, boiled egg etc. There was no toasting facility. The eggs were cooked many hours previously and were grey and hard, the meat was warm and unappetising. The tomatoes were shrivelled and the limited fruit was equally tired and old.

Coffee was brought to the table by the surly girl who never managed a smile or a bongiorno even by day 6. The coffee was awful considering Italy is the home of it.

There were a couple of tired sunloungers at the end of the dining area which didn’t look comfortable or inviting.

The view is magnificent but sadly no effort has been made to help you do any more than take a quick photo and move on.

The parking as mentioned is useful but again it’s all ramshackle and just on dusty aggregate with no proper bays. You have to drag your bags up the rubble to the hotel.

We really wanted to enjoy this hotel as our base for Tuscany but although we loved every second out and about in Tuscany we sadly can’t say the same for the hours spent...

When reviewing a property you generally assess it against the levels of amenity and service offered so here goes:||Room Decor - Think Granny’s bedroom; dated tired florals, fading animal prints, yellowing paint. Fusty atmosphere. ||Noise- hotel sits on the corner of two very busy roads. Noise affected everywhere. Not managed adequately by double glazing. Ear plugs required at night. ||Views- be aware at least 50% of rooms overlook traffic. Don’t believe the pictures. In all likelihood you won’t get a view. None of our party (3 rooms) had a view. When I complained on arrival that our room was not like the pictures; they said it was our fault as we didn’t request a view. I responded that every picture of the room shows a view. The road isn’t ever shown. ||Wifi - terrible to mostly non existent. Appears to be often not working at all. ||Breakfast- in a word; weird. No self-service; you queue and ask for every item. It feels stingy and over monitored. Uncomfortable experience. Best part is sitting on the terrace if the weather’s ok. ||Location- ok, not far from the city walls. After staying, we would have opted for a much quieter location had we understood the traffic noise issue. ||Staff- some trying hard. I feel sorry for them. Some often appear fed up and barely polite. ||Overall this property offers very poor value for money. One friend who had a truly dreadful dark mezzanine rooms left early. One stuck it out to the end of the booking but we also left early. I felt like I was in an old folks home. It broke our group up before of planned time. ||I suspect positive reviews come from those lucky enough to get a view. Would we recommend this property or stay here...

When reviewing a property you generally assess it against the levels of amenity and service offered so here goes:||Room Decor - Think Granny’s bedroom; dated tired florals, fading animal prints, yellowing paint. Fusty atmosphere. ||Noise- hotel sits on the corner of two very busy roads. Noise affected everywhere. Not managed adequately by double glazing. Ear plugs required at night. ||Views- be aware at least 50% of rooms overlook traffic. Don’t believe the pictures. In all likelihood you won’t get a view. None of our party (3 rooms) had a view. When I complained on arrival that our room was not like the pictures; they said it was our fault as we didn’t request a view. I responded that every picture of the room shows a view. The road isn’t ever shown. ||Wifi - terrible to mostly non existent. Appears to be often not working at all. ||Breakfast- in a word; weird. No self-service; you queue and ask for every item. It feels stingy and over monitored. Uncomfortable experience. Best part is sitting on the terrace if the weather’s ok. ||Location- ok, not far from the city walls. After staying, we would have opted for a much quieter location had we understood the traffic noise issue. ||Staff- some trying hard. I feel sorry for them. Some often appear fed up and barely polite. ||Overall this property offers very poor value for money. One friend who had a truly dreadful dark mezzanine rooms left early. One stuck it out to the end of the booking but we also left early. I felt like I was in an old folks home. It broke our group up before of planned time. ||I suspect positive reviews come from those lucky enough to get a view. Would we recommend this property or stay here...