Renovated Rocco Forte Hotel Savoy (Florence, Italy)
 

Any views regarding the Rocco Forte Hotel Savoy in Florence since it was renovated about a year ago? The location looks ideal. Quiet and hard product are particularly important.

Agree about location, it´s perfect in my eyes. Can´t say anything about the hotel itself.

Do you know why you were upgraded? Book direct and hotel not crowded, travel agent, FHR, other?

FWIW, when you wrote "I had a very nice stay there a few months ago" I thought you were there in February, when Florence is usually not crowded.

The executive suite would be my first choice too.

The Rocco Forte group recently enhanced their own program called Knights to offer 170EUR credit vs the normal 85EUR with Virtuoso and FHR on *suites*. Min stay of 2 nights.

Does Knights require a travel agent belonging to the program?

The dates I was looking at, booking direct offered about a 20% discount compared to Virtuoso pricing (and included free breakfast).

Yes.... Virtuoso & Knights are applicable on all Rocco Forte offers except the prepaid non-refundable type rates. At least that is my experience with all their promotions.

FWIW, an executive suite was 920E direct and $1,283 Virtuoso for mid-November, both refundable until two days prior and both including breakfast.

Then I suggest you follow-up with whomever offered you that rate quote as it would be wrong in my opinion.

We just completed a three day stay. We booked an executive suite and got a room on the fifth (top) floor facing the Piazza della Repubblica. The room rate was the published direct rate.

Massive problem: We had asked for a quiet room and they appeared to agree. However, there's a bar on the piazza that plays very loud music at night until 1:00 am Friday night - Saturday morning, making it impossible for us to sleep. Wednesday and Thursday the music stopped between 10 and 11pm, which was not a problem for us, and was not nearly as loud as Friday. When we called the front desk at about 11:30pm Friday and said "noise" they immediately knew what the problem was and offered to see if another room was available, but moving at that hour is not a great solution. I suppose we might have made more of a fuss after the first night, but it was not a serious problem then and my wife really dislikes switching hotel rooms after we've settled in.

There were a couple of other minor problems. The RF Knights program provides for an upgrade subject to availability and our confirmation from the hotel included that language. At check-in we were told the only better rooms than ours would be signature suites and those are not available for complimentary upgrade, but we could have one for an additional 1,000 euros. No. They later said another 500. Again, no. I'm fine without an upgrade, but don't list it as a benefit if it's not a possibility.

The executive suite was lovely - a very nice size and very pretty, so we did not purse the issue. A larger room would not have made us any happier.

The heating control was mis-calibrated and often did not appear to do anything. If I turned the temperature to 26C, it sometimes seemed to make a bit of heat, but nothing at lower temperature settings. We talked to the front desk about this and they said they'd have maintenance fix it, but there was no change. The temperature was never uncomfortable, which made this only a minor issue.

The staff were uniformly friendly and eager to please. The restaurant was fine for breakfast. It's truffle season and they did justice to tagliolini with white truffle for dinner. The location was perfect for us. At check-out, the front desk person and a front desk manager were extremely apologetic about the noise, but I cut the conversation short because we had to dash for a bus to Siena.

I'd consider staying there again if we could be assured of a genuinely quiet room. A view is nice, but quiet at bedtime is much more important.