Astor Hotel in Bologna

We stayed at this hotel during Cosmoprof as our company participates in the exhibition every year. We booked this hotel almost a year in advance. Previously we used Airbnbs, but since they usually don’t offer breakfast, we decided to book this hotel because it is relatively close to the exhibition venue, offers breakfast, has reasonable prices, and good reviews.
However, our experience was quite disappointing.
We checked in around 8PM and the hotel entrance has stairs, which made it very difficult to carry luggage inside. Then we were given rooms in the basement, which was quite surprising for this price level. There were also sinks and toilets in the hallway, and there was a bad smell in the basement area. The rooms themselves had a mold smell and also a smoke smell. (we could not book anything else at that time because of the exhibition and had to stay for 3 nights)
The receptionist was very slow and had difficulty understanding our request to change the rooms. She assigned a room with 3 beds to one person and a room with 1 bed to two people, which should have been the opposite. Also, she said she could not change the rooms to upper floors because they are fully booked and that we needed to speak with the manager in the morning. She kept saying her shift was ending and she could not do anything without the manager. So my advice is to check in early, as it seems the better rooms are given on a first-come basis.
The room itself was at least clean, warm, had hot water, and the shower pressure was good. But there were no cups, no fridge, no kettle, no bottled water, and no slippers. Only bed sheets, towels, and basic soap/body wash were provided.
The breakfast was actually good – cheese, ham, bread, croissants, yogurt, fruits, and coffee. The lady at the coffee bar was very kind and made great coffee, and the man helping during breakfast was also very kind and helpful.
The hotel is about 25 minutes from the Cosmoprof venue and the route is very easy and convenient.
I believe that on normal days the price may match the facilities, but during the exhibition the price was much higher, and in that case the service and facilities definitely did not match the price.
During checkout, we also had to pay the city tax, and it took about 30 minutes to calculate because we changed the rooms ourselves (2 people stayed in the 3-bed room and 1 person stayed in the single room), and the system showed different information. They also tried to charge breakfast for an extra person even though breakfast was already included in the twin room that they originally assigned to one person. In the end, we just wanted to pay and leave quickly to avoid being late for our flight.
So I strongly recommend allowing at least 30 extra minutes for checkout, because calculating the city tax took a long time and there was no clear explanation of how it was calculated (they said it depends on room type, number of people, time, etc.).
At the end, the reception staff helped us call a taxi and were kind, but overall the service was very slow.