Hotel Ritz - Florence, Italy     

THE HOTEL RITZ - FLORENCE - ITALY Booked this hotel via http://www.hotelritz.net The Hotel Ritz is masquerading as a 4 star hotel but should not even be star rated if condition and cleanliness is anything to go by. We stayed for 3 nights from the 25th April, the reception staff were lovely, polite couteous and helpful, the kitchen/dining room porters were helpful and polite, but what really let the place down was the tired condition and filthy rooms and spoilt carpets on the landing. (We used the stairs for three days to the third floor, we noticed that they were not cleaned in that time as the same muck was in the same place on the same stairs each day.) On entering our room we were immediately drawn to a filthy stain about 2 inches wide running down the wall from ceiling to floor near the TV. The floor which was tiled was dirty in the corners, there was a thick layer of dust on everything, the brass bed ends, the chandelier, the TV, inside the wardrobes, so thick in places it was like felt. The TV was 3 metres above the floor? Why? It was absolutely filthy. I was able to stand on a chair and write the words "clean me" across it in the dust it was so bad. (photo to follow!) before we could sleep in the bed we had to take a damp towel and wipe down the metal surfaces of the bed to remove the dust and no doub't bed mites which love that kind of filth. The navy blue bed cover was obviously not laundered very often as it had some white stains on the underside of it near the top. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions!! After the first night we rolled it up in to a heap with the stains showing so that the cleaner might think to replace it. We were much too the optimist, it was neatly placed back onto the bed for that night in the same condition as before! There was no other accommodation available otherwise we would have walked out. The saving grace was that the sheets on the bed were clean and the bath towels looked okay. The dining room was amazing, not because it was fantastic, but because it was so bad, the large round tables were squashed in with little room between them, the table cloths were generally stained. Instead of removing them after previous diners they were hoovered with a miniature table top hoover and left for the next diner, regardless of whether they were stained or not. The choice at breakfast was poor and not what we had anticipated. What I would like to know is, who awards them their stars, surely the bottom entry should be a high standard of cleanliness and a commitment to customer care and satisfaction. Sorely lacking here. In fact they should be ashamed of themselves and remove any star from their advertising so as not to mislead people.

Our room overlooked the river and we opened the window and had a great view. The street is heavily traveled by cars and many people. Personally, I loved having the window open and hearing the city noises. The rest of my family slept through the outside noise. The staff was very sweet and professional and always available to assist. The bathroom in our room was in serious need of an upgrade and caused the bedroom area to have an unpleasant smell at times. (Opening the window helped.) Our room and bathroom were exceptionally clean. The hotel is in a great and safe location. We only took a taxi to and from the train station and walked everywhere in Florence.