Raeli Hotel Floridia in Rome

I should have given this review right away, but you get busy on your vacation and as soon as I got back to the States I had to replace my air conditioning get back to work, etc, and time passes and you forget. But I had my review with the details of what happened saved and I just saw it today so decided it's time to post this. Maybe the place has changed in the last year and half since we've been there, I can't say for sure. But this was our experience when we stayed there end of May 2024: When we checked in on Tuesday we were given room 405. On Wednesday late morning to early afternoon my son started getting itchy and seeing red bumps appear. At first we thought maybe it was mosquito bites but then they started appearing more and more and they resembled bed bug bites. We stopped at the pharmacy and they recommended some hydrocortisone and additional medicine for itching. The total for that was $15 Euro. When we got back to the hotel around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday we told the front desk person that my son got bit by bed bugs. The man apologized and said he could give us another room and so he gave us the key to room 105. We went to go look at it and we couldn't get the air conditioning to work and so then he gave us the key to room 3 on floor 0. The room seems to be okay and the air conditioning works. I mentioned to the front desk man that he should tell his manager and he said yes he already called. My son and I spent over an hour going through our bags and checking all the clothes to see if any bed bugs came into our bags. I believe they gave us partial credit for our stay. But looking back on it what they should have done is given us a full refund, and put us up at a better hotel that would likely not have any bed bugs. So the customer service isn't that great. It was more than just an inconvenience for my son to spend our time in Rome in the heat with all these itchy bumps from bed bugs. I would never stay at this hotel again.

Right, where do I begin.

Well, for starters the location of the hotel is very central if you want to be near the termini station. Just a 8 minute stroll away. There’s a huge Conad (supermarket) right behind the hotel and lots of restaurants and bars in the area. Definitely not a sketchy place to be.

Now for the actual experience: I wouldn’t stay here again or recommend it. Purely on the lack of service from the staff at the hotel. From the checkin to checkout, everything felt impersonal, bureaucratic and unwelcoming.

I had asked for a weighing scale on checkin (not an impossible request, people use it to weigh luggage) but the way I was denied made me feel as if it was a stupid thing to ask for. Fair enough. I asked where I could get a digital scale and was met with a random suggestion to look down the road. When I asked if I could get a shop name, I wasn’t offered one. Google maps showed no such shop down the road either, so I ended up tracing one myself.

The staff never had a very jolly welcome greeting to say on arrival and just silently handed my keys whenever I walked in. After a full day of experiencing such unsolicited coldness, I was surprised and reciprocated, and was met with the same behaviour through my three nights stay. No warmth, no greeting, just key handed over. So odd.

Asking for hot water one morning in my room, and I was told how “impossible” it was to get it sent to my room and I can use the water outside in the main lobby. I had been at the tail end of a two week multi city trip and was sick by the end of it, but just the way I was denied definitely stung. Sometimes staff isn’t available during breakfast, but there’s a way to frame that right?A “we’re so sorry” or a “I’m afraid we’re all a bit busy” instead of just a straight “oh no we don’t do that here” makes a huge difference. Not how a paying patron wants to feel, the lack of hospitality and warmth was abysmal.

The checkout was a “okay let me see here, okay yes you can leave” - not a chance to help a 60 kilo lady help lug her 35 kilo luggage. I mean, nothing was overt, but just a bunch of random small things put together that makes me think their entire staff needs a hospitality training overhaul, because clearly they can’t be bothered to go beyond a quick no.