Forum - Rome, Italy 

Great location, LOUD cleaning staff!!
Posted: Mon, Jul 07 2008
I stayed in this hotel for 9 nights in late June 2008. I was here for work and vacation, and the location was superb for both. I love to walk, and since this hotel is centrally located, I was in heaven. The air conditioning is very good and I stayed in the middle of a significant heat wave. Breakfast is good and the roof-top restaurant is very nice although dinner is significantly overpriced. The bar on the roof is very nice. My only real complaint is the cleaning staff starts very early, near 6AM, and they are very loud and boisterous. This is not so unexpected, although they do enter your room without any knocking or announcement, so its very important to leave out your "do not disturb" sign regardless of the time of day. I was in the shower when the staff walked in unannounced....

Great hotel, close to everything
Posted: Sun, Jul 06 2008
My husband and I stayed at the Hotel Forum in September 2007. We found the hotel to be a clean, wonderfully staffed hotel! This was the first hotel on our 9 day 'trek' across Italy...(3 nights Rome, 1 night Sorrento, 1 night Florence, 1 night Pietro, 2 nights Venice). From the moment we checked in, everyone was so pleasant. From the front desk, bellman, waiters, and bartender! Our room was very spacious (we did reserve their best room though) and bathroom very clean. After a long day of sightseeing, we could have just passed out from exhaustion, but we decided to go to the hotel's rooftop bar, on the fifth floor. I cannot remember the bartender's name, but he was wonderful!! He spoke very good english and was so friendly!! The view from atop the bar was gorgeous, too. You could clearly see the Forum and all the lights from the city were beautiful. The complimentary breakfast bar was very good. It had assorted fruits, cereals, meats, juices, and coffee. All in all a very pleasant stay!

Memorable opulence
Posted: Wed, May 28 2008
My wife and I spent our wedding night here. We paid a lot for our room but it looked out onto the Forum and had two bathrooms. The hotel kindly provided some complimentary champagne. There's not a lot to say about this hotel other than that it was a superb experience all round for us. The location is incomparable. We only spent one night there and had breakfast the next day, which was plentiful and thorough. It's not the sort of place I would stay at normally because it is quite expensive but you get what you pay for so if you have the money I would definitely recommend this place for luxury and style.

The worst room I've ever stayed in
Posted: Fri, May 23 2008
The hotel is situated opposite the main archeological sites, which is an advantage only for the access thereto, while it is quite far from the main shopping areas, like the Spanish steps. The street is narrow and the nearby neighborhood not fantastic. Regarding the hotel itself, it seems it has different types of rooms, but I only saw what they call a "single room". It is the worst (unbelievably worst) room I've ever stayed in. A tiny room measuring hardly 1.80X2.10 meters (that is, the size of a large double bed!), containing one tiny single bed (suitable only for a 7-year-old child), a folding tiny table and a small bathroom with shower only (all equipment in the bathroom was of tiny size, a relatively tall person would have a problem). All furniture was old and worn and, what was awful, was a terrible smell, probably coming out of the bathroom. The room had no view at all, the old window looked out on a side of the building closed around (completely dark in morning also) and permeating all noises from there -- the worst being noise of water coming down from tubes, which kept me awake most of the night. There was no mini bar in the room, obviously because there was no space for that. The noises from the floor corridor were also heard perfectly loudly inside the room. The hotel claimed it is their single standard room, a "standard" that is astonishingly irrelevant to the 4-star level that they claim they have! If I had known, I would have booked another hotel or room for the rate of 170 euros that they charged. Their breakfast was Ok, not much variety but a little of everything. Their front desk service was quite poor with no clear or standard policy on charges -- I heard many people complaining, including most of my business group. I would never stay in that hotel again, I cannot believe it claims it is 4-star!

Definitely not 4* rooms!
Posted: Thu, May 15 2008
Just returned from a couple of nights at the Hotel Forum. The hotel itself is nice (not outstanding), and our room was very very tiny! We paid nearly ?400 for 2 nights via Expedia, and for that you didn't even get a bath, only the smallest shower in the world. Would I say that ?400 was worth the view from our bedroom window - no definitely not. You would also expect the wifi in the hotel to be complimentary, but of course it wasn't, don't be silly! The free 'welcome' drink up in the roof terrace bar is only allowed to be claimed between 7.30-8pm not leaving much time for manoeuvre - the white wine had obviously been open for quite some time and tasted like vinegar. On the plus side - the staff were friendly and helpful and the other areas of the hotel were nice. The location is excellent, which I guess is what you are paying for, around 3 minute walk to the colosseum which was very handy (which also has a metro station to get anywhere in the City). Also didn't get woken up at night even though we had an outside room on the 4th floor, so can't complain about that - and I'm a light sleeper. Don't mean to sound like a moaner - one other tip - DO NOT USE THE TERRAVISION BUS at Ciampino airport - we waited 2 hours for a transfer to the city even though they were supposed to be there every 15 minutes, whilst waiting we discovered another transfer service outside that had buses coming in regularly and it's cheaper at 6 Euros instead of 8 Euros. When speaking to the Terravision staff we were just fobbed off and told "10 Italian minutes" until the next bus. We also used the other company on the return leg to the airport who had a bus ready and waiting at the Termini, and as expected the Terravision queue was huge and we probably would have missed our flight.