Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Rome

After all the wonderful reviews of the Rome Cavalieri, I had pretty high expectations for the property, but unfortunately, so of those expections were not met.

Let's start with the room. While the room is clean and has that old world charm, it definitely appeals to an older generation. The bed was comfortable and all the furniture was kept well. One strange thing that kept bothering me was all the wall art was crooked and I could not straighten them out no matter how hard I tried. Also, the speed of the Internet was barely 2-3 Mbps, so that needs to be upgraded as well.

The bathroom was nice and mostly clean, as I found no mold in the bathtub/shower, but did see some under the sink lip. The showerhead was crusted and needed a cleaning. I also do not like shower/tub combos and feel that having to stand in the front 1/3 of the tub for a shower makes it feel very cramped.

The breakfast buffet was outstanding from the variety of the food to the service. It was a pleasure every morning to meet the staff and have access to the wonderful buffet. They had both Western and European options as well as some Eastern fare as well. Keep in mind that ordering off the menu was not part of the buffet, but a separate charge.

The location of the hotel is on top of one of Rome's hills and there are good and bad points to this. The good is that is very quiet and you don't hear the sirens of the city and you have an incredible view. We walked down the street to a location overlooking the city for New Years and it was incredible. The downside is that there is nothing around you in terms of restaurants and nothing else to walk to.

The biggest issue we ran into was the shuttle bus into the city. We were the first bus into the city one morning and the driver told us where to get picked up every hour. After a lot of time in the city, we went back to the pickup location and met others from the same morning shuttle and waited over an hour and there was no shuttle. Finally, one of the other guests that could speak Italian called the hotel and they told her they had to move the pickup and dropoff location. I felt that they could have either texted or emailed hotel guests about this change, but they did not and left us to figure it out for ourselves. We walked to the new location and was finally picked up after almost two hours of waiting.

I have been to many Waldorf Astoria hotels all over the world and this was the worst one so far for me. Hopefully your experience will be better.