Residenza Frattina - Rome, Italy 

SO
Posted: Sat, Dec 20 2008
I have been to Rome many times and this has to be the best place I have stayed at! The most charming aspect of the hotel are the great staff. In Rome, where snobbish and rude sale staff/ hotel staff are aplenty, Frattina staff set the benchmark for being the friendliest and most unpretentious! Paola and two other gentlemen who were there were obliging, smiling, competent and speak great english. It does not hurt that they are good looking too! Next are the great amenities they provide: Big fluffy bathrobe, GOOD quality bedroon slippers and free minibar (coke, sprite, water, fanta). I was ecstatic with the free mini bar, not that i get to save a lot from that but it is such a sweet gesture. I never had a free minibar not even in a 6 star hotel before! breakfast is ok but in europe, one should never expect too much about the breakfast. My room size was great but that is coz i had the biggest room in the group. my friends' rooms were all good size (by roman standards and the fact that we pay to be near spanish steps)But the single room for single use is too small so i would suggest a double room for single use instead. My room faces the street so it is noisy at night sometimes. Location is fab, we walked everywhere except to the vatican! No elevator so two floors up which is 4 flights of steps is a challenge if there are no man to help you. My group will be back in Italy again next April so definitely Frattina is on our list. Thank you Frattina for making my trip to Rome the best so far!

Pleasant experience
Posted: Mon, Jul 07 2008
We stayed at Residenza Frattina for three nights and enjoyed our stay. As the hotel is very small you get personal attention. The staff was very helpful and friendly - they recommended a couple of restaurants also which proved to be better quality than the ones we explored ourselves (excellent food, reasonable prices). Also the transportation service to the airport was excellent. The location is good and our room was quiet. Good breakfast, too. I would recommend this hotel to persons who like to stay a place with character. This is not a luxury hotel but a nice place to stay. If there is something negative to say - the bathroom was quite small.

Dreadful Experience!
Posted: Fri, May 02 2008
Good points: centrally located boutique style hotel on a pedestrian only street. Beautiful Breakfast room. Good Breakfast. free soda in the mini fridge. Nice artwork in the lounge. Bad points: Hotel is not on the 2nd floor (as advertised) it is at the top of 5 flights of stairs. There is no elevator. Staff do not help carry bags upstairs/ downstairs. The hotel overbooked and did not advise us in advance of this problem... I booked 6 months in advance and provided a credit card to hold our room reservation. We arrived jet lagged with exhausted children and we were told they did not have a room available for us until the following day. No room at the hotel...They called a cab and sent us to another hotel- a Best Western on the outskirts of the city, in a grafitti covered neighborhood that made me nervous. We had to transfer back to the hotel the next day. Re-packing and unpacking --transporting kids & luggage took up most of our morning. We lost 1/2 a day of our vacation, and were too far from the center of town to do any evening sightseeing. The room was very plain. There was a single dead rose in a vase ( I'm not kidding). During our entire stay they did not make beds, or provide fresh towels, they did not even take out the garbage from our room. This was a problem as our daughter is still in diapers-- and the used Pampers smell was dreadful. It was cold, but we had to open the window because of the smell. Hotel service was non- existent. Tiny shower stall leaked water all over the bathroom floor. They insisted charging us full price- even for the night we were transferred to the Best Western. I would have gone somewhere else-- but it was Easter Week + Rome marathon and all centrally located hotels were full. This was a bad experience, I do not recommend this hotel. it is especially not good for families. This was our first ime in Rome and it was very disappointing. They charged us 230 Euros ($363) a night . I would Never stay there again.