Hotel Villa St Dominique - Rome, Italy 

My stay at the St. Dominique villa, Rome is going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. People travelling to rome and considering being put up at this hotel, BEWARE!! We were a group of individuals travelling to rome the first time. The place Via Cassia where this hotel is located is quite a distance ( took us more than an hour and a half to reach from ROMA Termini), unlike the 10 minutes mentioned on the hotel's website. The hotel does not provide any facilities apart from breakfast and there are no food outlets nearby. The closest pizza parlour that you might find, is more than a good 30 minutes walk. The frequency of the buses travelling to and fro, is very low and a 30 to 45 minute wait to go to the nearest station, is inevitable. Our planned trip was completely ruined because of the travelling time from via cassia to the city. We had to alter our plans and cut-short many sight seeings in keeping with the bus and train timings. The worst was yet to come at the hotel. The following day of our visit, we experienced a low-grade service from the hotel staff. The hotel does not stock towels and we were given the same towels to be used for three consequitive days. On requesting for fresh ones, the manager claimed that the laundry people had not arrived on the day. He seemed to have only two spare towels which he mentioned was "low-quality" (wonder what he meant by that) and he also mentioned that he had no staff to send them over with, to our room and hence, if we needed towels we better come to the reception and collect the same. Fathom, asking your "guest" to collect things from the reception!!! The hotel does not stock an iron and the nearest laundry is about eight stops away by bus. Not to mention that the cost of ironing one trouser, one shirt and two dresses would come to nearly 52 euros. The buffet breakfast was minimal and no way in line with the 70 euros they charge per night!!! The management fails to see that the tables provided are too small for two people to keep their trays on. However, if you fail to carry a tray, they dont waste a single minute to remind you of the same, in their own rude manner and infront of all other guests. Dare you throw a single crumb on the table, you will surely end up hearing the grudges from the buffet supervisor. While settling our bill on the final day, we tried lodging a complaint with the front-desk manager about the buffet supervisor, who was particularly ill-mannered with us during breakfast. The manager lost no time to use his actions and tell us that we took more than one helping. If to exactly quote, his words were " Take once and Go. Dont take again".....and their website happily states "Buffet - Breakfast". He crossed his limits when we mentioned that we would not recommend the hotel to anyone and he ended up saying "We dont need you". Forget apologising, here was a hotel manager telling his customers that he doesn't need them!!! At the end of the argument, he got racial and it was absolutely shocking to see him and his subordinates enact, abuse and threaten us. Our only fault, that we complained about their services. Its an absolute shame to spoil your journey because of some ill-mannered people and we realized that unfortunately, had we read some reviews before booking this hotel we wouldn't have committed this mistake. Nevertheless, its a lesson learnt and I would surely NOT recommend staying at the St. Dominique villa in Rome. Its definitely not worth the money, time or effort spent. The hotel says "No shirt, No shoes - NO SERVICE". The bottom line is even with Shirts and Shoes ON, be assured that you won't get any service.

I reserved and paid for a room at this hotel a month in advance. When I arrived, confirmed reservation in hand, the front desk clerk fumbled through a bunch of papers and asked me to wait a few minutes while he did some further checking. While I waited, 2 different guests came down to complain that there were no towels in their rooms (they were both told that there was a problem with towels and they would get some later ... it was already 8 pm), and 1 guest came to complain that he was given the wrong key for his room (this guest was asked to come back in a few minutes, because his key must have been switched with another guest). After waiting 10-15 minutes, another man came out of an office to tell me that in fact, they had no room for my son and I. They made several phone calls, eventually sending me by taxi (Euro 25... my cost) to a Auto Hotel further outside of Rome on the side of the Superstrada. If it hadn't been for the fact that my son was to take an important exam the next morning at 8 am, I wouldn't have put up with this. The management of this hotel had no empathy whatsoever. I strongly urge anyone to stay away; indifferent to my dilemma (shady characters!), very unprofessional.