Originally Posted by
hockeyinsider
In other words, your typical Italian incompetence, European-esque snobbery, and Autograph Collection treatment of Marriott elites.
As I said earlier, this hotel is owned and operated by a tour operator. They're using Marriott to fill nights when they don't have tour buses packing the hotel. I would expect the worst possible treatment as a Marriott elite from May-September.
There were absolutely zero tour groups when we stayed there. I'm not disagreeing with you about who owns the place (I don't know) or their plans (I don't know that either). The hotel has 60 standard rooms. So I guess small tours? Either way, none present last week.
Originally Posted by
Kacee
Add this place to the list of major chain properties in Rome that are not worth the price. Maybe I would try the (former) Boscolo Exedra based on reports of excellent Plat recognition. Otherwise I'm staying independent in Rome.
To be fair, it is physically not possible for a single property to be close to all those sites.
No, of course it isn't. And the location is great -- compared to many other nice hotels in Rome from chains that are less well located.
Originally Posted by
jmanirish
I was also staying on points. I may be numb from it from my travelsrip in Europe, but didn't pick up an condescension for using points.
So this was an all-points trip save for some cash out of pocket in Cash/Points at Gritti Palace. The St. Regis mentioned they were aware we were paying on points, explained our lovely upgraded room in same breath, etc. The Pantheon Iconic desk clerk had that sigh of being offended we weren't using real money at "his hotel". It was gross, but perhaps typical.
I had some of the same issues, but others not at all. I got an 'upgrade' to a junior suite and also thought it felt like more of a regular room to me. But this could also be a European thing (upgrades at the W Paris also don't feel like an upgrade until you see how small the regular rooms are).
Had we been given a junior suite and been unimpressed by junior suites I'd have acknowledged this was an upgrade. Instead we were told it was an upgrade to some room "we will definitely like". But the upgrade was indiscernible from the booked room class..
The lighting controls - 100% agree. As you note, the controls are 'scenes', instead of individual lights, but none of the buttons are labeled so I would constantly go through all of them to work it out. The amount of time I spent turning lights on and off, hitting buttons, just to work out how to get specific lights on/off was insane.
The mirror does go off - at least in my room. It was a separate switch by the mirror itself (instead of on the wall when you first walk in with the rest of the wall controls).
So our room had no mirror switch. I don't know what to say other than that. The lighting "scenes" are somewhat dumb and, yes, unlabeled. And yes, cycling through them over and over for 5 days was amusing/
Hotel definitely has some kinks to work out, and the EUR 450/night they're trying to get is absurd. But for points, very well worth it.
I can make the same argument about points. It was, what, 180K for 5 nights or "12,000 SPG points a night"? So yeah, for that, it's hard to argue. Especially with the lovely breakfast and bar staff and the rooftop terrace.