Review of Palazzo Montemartini in Rome

TGT Rating: 1/10

Traveling to Rome, a city steeped in history, culture, and unparalleled beauty, our expectations were sky-high, especially when it came to our chosen abode: Palazzo Montemartini Rome, part of the prestigious Radisson Collection Hotel. With its 5-star rating gleaming like a beacon of promised luxury, we approached our stay with a mix of excitement and trepidation, primarily due to the wildly polarizing reviews we stumbled upon during our meticulous pre-travel research. We're not ones to fuss over minor imperfections; a decent bed and a smile from the staff are usually enough to keep us content. Yet, what unfolded was a series of events that aligned more closely with the nightmarish one-star tales rather than the dreamy five-star experiences others seemed to have enjoyed.

First Impressions: A Rocky Start

Upon arrival, our spirits were high, eager to dive into the Roman adventure that awaited us. However, the first signs that our experience might not align with our expectations emerged almost immediately. An odd refusal to exchange a 100 euro note for smaller denominations was our initial encounter with the hotel's service, a service that, while minor, set a precedent for the lack of accommodation we were about to face.

The Room: A Dreary Welcome

Adorned in various shades of gray, the room's aesthetics flirted with the boundary of minimalism and outright dreariness. Its peculiarly shaped structure reminded one more of an attic than a luxurious hotel room. Yet, aesthetics can be subjective, and we were prepared to overlook this in favor of a good night's sleep in what we hoped would be a comfortable bed. Unfortunately, the universe had plotted a different storyline for our stay.

The Bathroom Ordeal: Beyond Unpleasant

The most pressing issue that marred our stay from the outset was an unbearable stench of sewage emanating from the bathroom. This wasn't a minor inconvenience that could be overlooked or easily remedied; the bathroom was virtually unusable. When we tried to call the front desk, we realized that our in-room phone was out of order and it prompted me to go downstairs to talk to the front desk. Attempts to resolve this through the hotel's front desk were met with a peculiar and inefficient solution - to use their WhatsApp to inquire about the sewage issue.

Odd, that a 5-star hotel will not address the nonworking in-room phone and ask me to text them instead - but I didn’t want to give them a lot of trouble and went back upstairs to text via WhatsApp.

What followed was a comedy of errors, though it felt far from comedic at the time. Promises of a technician's visit dissolved into thin air, leading to a frustrating merry-go-round of visits to the front desk, unanswered messages, and ultimately, a sense of being trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare where the promise of luxury felt more like a distant mirage.

When I asked to switch rooms on my third time down at the front desk (again, phone still not working), the receptionist was rather rude and told me that housekeeping was in our room right now to remedy the issue. This was, of course, not only a lie because my husband and Eli were still in the room and no on had showed up, and ridiculous attempt at resolving the issue. The hotel's attempt to categorize a severe sewage issue as a mere housekeeping problem was both baffling and insulting. The conversation went something like this and I promise I was as polite as possible in communicating this:

Me: The thing is, I don’t think the sewage smell is a house keeping issue.
Receptionist: - but it is. It is a housekeeping issue. You can ask to switch rooms after housekeeping cleans your room.

First, I don’t think that there was a need for the receptionist to cut me off and be so adamant that this was a housekeeping issue. I don’t need a plumbing license to know whether a seeping sewage stench is because of a structural/plumbing issue or a house keeping issue. A simple ‘I’m sorry for the issue, let us look into it’ would have sufficed.

Second, if this was in fact a house keeping issue - that’s another problem for the hotel. Were they trying to say that housekeeping did such an incompetent job in our room before checking us in?

Despite our efforts to communicate the severity of the situation, we were met with dismissals and, eventually, a begrudging acknowledgment that perhaps the problem was beyond the scope of a simple clean-up. When we came back to our room after a full day out in Rome, the room was filled with fragrance, which was obvious to cover the smell. The suggestion that housekeeping could somehow address what was clearly a structural issue was not only inadequate but also indicative of a deeper problem within the hotel's approach to guest satisfaction and problem resolution.

Room Relocation: From the Frying Pan Into the Fire

When we addressed the continued sewage stench to the front desk after housekeeping sprayed the room with some sort of fragrance, the hotel finally agreed to move us to another (which I don’t think should’ve been this difficult to even ask for a different room). Another example to how the customer experience for this hotel does not match to its 5-star rating is that the front desk told us to pack our stuff and bring all of our suitcases down to the first floor again from the fourth floor for the new room assignment. We had to lug all of our luggage back down to the first floor, only to be reassigned to a room on the same exact fourth floor. No offer to help us bring the luggage down, nor the more logical solution to just give us the new room keys a few doors down from where we were to move straight from our old room.

When we were finally moved to a new room, it was a classic case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. The new "better" room was smaller, with a non-functional hammam that mocked us with its uselessness, and a shower that might as well have been a dark closet for all the comfort it provided. The hammam didn’t work and the separate shower had no lighting except for whatever was emitting from the digital shower controls. The pièce de résistance, however, was a bed that seemed to believe it was part of the local transport system, offering us a nightly ride with its incessant shaking. After hours of trying to get some sleep despite the constant shaking, I turned to WhatsApp to inform the hotel of the issue. When I asked if there was some sort of train that ran through the hotel I was met with what can only be described with a snarky response:

So what exactly is causing the shaking? And absolutely no apologetic gesture at all from the hotel.

Bottom Line:

Breakfast offering at the hotel. Fine, but nothing to write home about.

One of the main reason why we chose this hotel was due to its proximity to the central Rome station (right across the street). This served to be super useful as we took the train from Florence to Rome. The breakfast included with our stay was also fine (but just fine - not exceptional). However, that’s about the only good things about this hotel. The streets to and from the central station is incredibly dirty, the staff are indifferent, and this hotel is definitely not a 5-star level. The heart of hospitality lies not in the grandeur of facilities or the lavishness of offerings but in the warmth, attentiveness, and responsiveness of the service provided. It is here that Palazzo Montemartini Rome faltered most significantly. At no point during our ordeal were we met with a sincere apology or a genuine attempt to understand and rectify the problems we faced. Instead, we encountered a defensive stance and a series of excuses that served only to exacerbate our frustration and disappointment.

Our experience at Palazzo Montemartini Rome was a stark departure from what one might expect from a 5-star establishment under the Radisson Collection Hotel banner. The series of missteps, from service failures to the inability to provide basic comforts, painted a picture of a hotel that, while possibly capable of providing a luxurious stay under the right circumstances, fails to handle adversity with the grace and professionalism expected at this level of hospitality.

As we reflect on our time in Rome, it is with a sense of missed opportunity—not just on the part of the hotel to deliver on its promises of luxury and excellence, but also a personal sense of disappointment that our experience in this historic city was marred by our lodging choice. While Rome itself remains an enchanting destination, our advice to future travelers is to approach Palazzo Montemartini Rome with caution, armed with the knowledge that a 5-star rating is not always indicative of a 5-star experience.

In the end, our rating reflects not only our personal experiences but also the realization that true luxury lies not in opulence but in the quality of care and service provided. It is with a heavy heart that we align our review more closely with the one-star narratives, hoping that this serves as a constructive critique for Palazzo Montemartini Rome to elevate its standards to match its prestigious rating. As for us, we look forward to our next adventure, armed with new insights and an ever-keen eye for the details that make or break the travel experience.