Tak

It depends on the age of your child.
I am staying at the hotel right now.
We have two twin beds, and the each bed is a little bigger than regular twin bed, but still smaller than double.
If you request extra bed, please be careful that they might charge you 98Eur for the extra bed.
I am not sure kid under certain age is allowed for the extra bed for free.
Usually, kid is allowed free if you use existing beds.

My room is granddeluxe and it is spacious and enough space for extra bed.
The Room is facing outside with pretty good view of Via Veneto and American Embassy.

We have another room which is Granddeluxe Suite because of my SPG status.
Originally, I was told no suite available, but I insisted and asked(because I reserved two rooms through Amex Platinum Travel Service with my SPG Platinum Status), they finaly gave me one suite and one granddeluxe(original booking was one granddeluxe and one deluxe).
I have seen in that morning there were several suites available during my stay.

Forstbetrieb

Good choice, and yes it is a good location for touring to the major sights. There is a urban bus line, which brings you even to the vatican.

Flews

Yes it's a good choice. A great choice IMO.

If a suite is important to you, buy the upgrade. If you won't be disappointed without a suite upgrade, then don't.

Only you can answer your question as to whether 35 sq m is big enough for your own needs.

Cheers,

calibeachgal

Thanks for the input. I was careful to tell Starwood her age and info so that any charges would show up now, not when we get there. They did say they would give us a rollaway bed, too. I may call again and make sure of it all, but I think I'm already paying extra for having 3 in the room.

A suite is not that important to me, since I doubt we'll even be in the room much. Just want to make sure the rollaway will fit in. We really have no desire or use for a second room so I tried to reserve a larger regular room. The people at Starwood that I spoke with were not that great at making the reservation (an understatement, as I had to call back twice to fix their mistakes), so it's nice to hear from people at the hotel.

cartman13

It's also about a 10 min. walk to the spanish steps from there.

We stayed in a suite there on points only about a year ago. We were very happy with the hotel. The suite was huge. it had a seperate bedroom area and a good size living area. Was a little older, but was clean and service was good.

Tak

I just came back from termini station.
Taxi costs 5~6 euro depending on the traffic.

I also measured the size of our twin bed.
It is about 46 inches wide.
Continental breakfast costs 30 Euro if your rate plan does not included.
Full breakfast is much more than that.
In that case, as everyone suggested, have breakfast outside.

Only one thing I did not like here was a lack of free mineral water for SPG guests.
0.5L aqua as well as coke cost 4 euro(tax included) in the minibar.
However, our Amex plan includes 85 euro food/bar credit so I just consumed them from minibar

By the way, I really enjoy my stay here.

calibeachgal

Tak,

Thank you for the "head's up" on the rollaway charge. I have spoken to four (4), yes, 4 Starwood agents today, all of whom gave me completely different answers regarding extra charges. One said no charge for child and bed, one said no charge for a child and we don't need a bed, one said there is a charge for the child but not the bed, and the last said a charge for the bed not the child (euro45). I asked to speak to a manager since I was so frustrated by that point (already spoke with a supervisor) and they put me through to the manager at the Excelsior who is the ONLY one who seconded your report of the 98 Euro charge...

She says she'll get back to me... She was very polite, too. At least she understood that I needed a clear understanding of exactly how much they were expecting us to pay for the room. Honestly, does no-one complain when their room rate is over $100 higher per night than they were promised?

But I must say that this is my first experience with Starwood (have stayed Hyatt, Hilton, Four Seasons, etc in the past) and I have to say that I am really underwhelmed with their knowledge and their professionalism... Don't think I'll be booking with Starwood again soon... Their US reps who answer the phones are pretty awful IMO. It took almost an hour to book the room with them in the first place, since the first agent accidentally booked us in Florence with 1 adult and spelled our name wrong, too. (That took quite a while to fix).

With the more than $100 a day extra fee there are plenty of other hotels we can look at in Rome.

Anyway, I really appreciate you bringing this to my attention. If not for you, I would have believed the reps who promised me that my daughter and her rollaway were free -- and then had a nasty shock on checkout.

TRAVELBABE

Hotels in Europe usually charge for children, so I am always checking with the hotel (not customer service because they never seem to know) before I go to make sure of the charges. If you go to the SPG website and then to the hotel you are interested in, you can click on "Announcements" just under the address and usually get a good idea about their children policy.

In this case, "Age Requirement Policy: Guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Guests over the age of 12 will be charged as an adult. Children 12 and younger sleep free in existing bedding."

I agree that the extra person charge seems like a lot, but I have found this the norm rather than the exception in Europe.

calibeachgal

Strangely enough, even if it says they charge for the "person" I am told it's only for the bed... so if there is no rollaway then no charge. Very strange to me. I can understand that each hotel charges what it charges, just not with the Starwood employees who can't give me an actual price per night. I was on hold for a long, long time while the reps were "researching" this for me -- and they still got it wrong. I am hopeful that when the rep. from the hotel gets back to me I will at least know what the charges will be. I had a similar issue with the Park Hyatt in Paris, but the situation was handled with much more professionalism by the reps at the toll-free Hyatt number.

sk3

Hi again! Firstly, I'm sorry to hear about this, you've already gone thru enough frustration with your AA flights! (Atleast the Paris portion sounds like it was relatively headache-free).

Secondly, regarding the booking process - for me, I always book online so that I have everything in writing from the get go. It's a shame that your first contact with SPG's call center has been so underwhelming. But out of curiousity I just looked at SPG.com to see what was in writing regarding extra ppl, beds, etc.

If you were to book an award reservation (and a standard award is for 2 ppl) then it says in the rate description: Ex Person Charge (12 Y.o. And Older): 97.90 Eur Pn".

However, if you were booking a paid stay for 3 people (I chose the dates April 11th to April 15th) the rate is €454 for the deluxe room. (If you booked for 2 ppl the rate is €365). In the "Terms and Details" of the rate (on the booking page of the reservation for 3 ppl) it says under Additional charges: " Extra rollaway: No charge". So it seems based on this that if you made a reservation on the phone for 3 people, that you booked the 3 ppl rate and no extra charges should be applied as it clearly states that there is no charge for a rollaway.

Perhaps the FTers here who mentioned the extra charge for the 3rd person all used points, and thus had this charge for the extra person.

BUT when I looked at the other rates offered on SPG.com you also see that the Prepaid Non-Changeable rate is €1009!!!!!!! So based on this and the conflicting information that you were given on the phone, I'd wager that the hotel has loaded in their data all mish-mashed and perhaps this is why the call center folks are so confused...... Here's a link to that booking page with the ridiculous prepaid rates.

Let us know what the hotel finally says....

About the general question of whether the Excelsior is a good choice I'll post that in a bit.

sk3

The Excelsior is a terrific property indeed. But things to keep in mind are that it's an historic (fabulous) builiding, whose rooms differ wildly in shapes and sizes (unlike a property with cookie-cutter identically proportioned rooms). Your deluxe room could face an interior courtyard (some older posts attest to this dissappointment) or you could end up with a terrific room with a balcony, etc. Rome hotel rooms in general are much, much smaller than what Americans are used to, and their standard deluxe room with 35sqm is actually large in comparison to alot of Rome hotels. But as another here pointed out, only you would know if this is enough space for your family.

Most of us here are miles and points junkies and the new found exuberance for this property (I think) stems from the fact that they recently lowered their Category from a 6 to a 5 (lowering the points needed to book an award stay). That means I was able to just book a 5 night award reservation for next spring for 48,000 points, the same rate that I booked it in 2003. This has me thrilled. Also, alot of us here have status with SPG, tons of Golds and many Platinums - and with this status our chances are increased that we will be upgraded to a larger room in the Grand Deluxe category, or suite, etc. Also, being miles and points junkies, even when we book revenue rooms, we also take into consideration how many points we will be earning (which offsets the price in a sense).

But it seems that you're solely looking for a wonderful Rome experience with a well located lovely hotel for your family's trip. And you definitely have many options for the prices of the Excelsior.

Based on location, the MOST central area to stay is naturally, the center of Rome's historic center. For me, I put that in the Pantheon area. The Excelsior is on the north-east end the centro storico. Rome is relatively small (well, I live in L.A. so that's my reference) and I've walked to all of Rome's sites from the Excelsior. But perhaps you might want to look at the Grand de la Minerve which is in the piazza just SE of the Pantheon. I stayed there once and had a room in the front of the building that had a view of the Piazza de la Minerva with Bernini's elephant and obelisk statue in the center, and the back and side view of the Pantheon. That was by far the best location I've ever stayed in visiting Rome.

Of course you also have the Hassler and the Hotel de Russie as the true Rome standouts.

The Intercontinental on top of the Spanish Steps could be a great choice too, check out the Intercontinental Forum here on FT.

Lastly, I came across a hotel recently which looked great since it has recently had a major renovation. It used to be called Hotel Gladiatori but now it's called Palazzo Manfredi and you could get a Colosseum view which I'd think would be great for a first time visit to Rome.

I don't mean to knock the Excelsior by any means. I've loved my stays there and I'm very happy to be going back next spring. If your reservation can be ironed out to your satisfaction this could indeed be a great hotel for you. And now that you're in direct contact with the hotel, perhaps you can "leverage" that relationship to help insure that you are given one of the better deluxe rooms on check-in.

SanDiego1K

Superb advice. I have succumbed to picking hotels based on brand allegiance. However, I wasn't always that way. I used to go to Rome at least twice a year on business. Our customer chose this hotel for us, and it is where I stayed many times. I loved walking out of my hotel and being in the heart of the historic center of the city. I won't rhapsodize further about this location, given that the thread is about the Excelsior, but this comment brings many happy memories to mind.

calibeachgal

sk3 -- thanks for all the info! I did book by phone and was told not extra charge (over and over again). The manager at the hotel has told me, in writing, that there will be no charge for the rollaway, due to all the confusion and time I have spent on this.

Thank goodness for all the people here who have been so helpful!

As for the other hotels, the Hassler comes out much more expensive (maybe I got a good deal at the Westin?), but I will check the other ones you have mentioned since I have not heard about them before. Although now that I have the price ironed-out, I'm more likely to just leave things alone.

Thanks again!

laangelsfan

Was wondering the same thing...

Flews

Does anyone have any opinions on the pool at this property? While I have stayed here before, I have no recollection of a pool; although my stay was very short and I really didn't have time to check into it.

Cheers,