GRAND HOTEL TRIESTE & VICTORIA – Contemporary Thermal Luxury SPA in Abano Terme

The hallway and room smelled of urine.

With my wife we booked 10 days to enjoy the thermal pools but was really a major disappointment and left after 3 nights! We would have left earlier but decided to be very careful when looking for an alternative hotel, as we didn't want to endup in the same kind of "trap" again.
Although I am not an expert on the subject, after reviewing the 5 star hotels' law requirements, my opinion is that this hotel is not really a 5 star and they should really be reprimanded, I was trying how to report them to the authorities but I couldn't find a way to do it easily.

Major issues:
- Mold in the shower
- Rust coming out from the sink for the first day
- The rooms not soundproofed, you can hear everything from the corridor, everyone flushing the toilet or using the shower and the piano bar is like having it in your room form ±7pm till it ends, between 11.30pm and midnight.
- The smell of mold in the corridors, probably under the carpet, is strong and almost made me puke the only morning I decided to have an early breakfast (they open the windows from 8.30am onwards)
- Booked a room with bathtube but got a room with the shower

I can't imagine this being a 5 star hotel, it's missing some of the basic mandatory requirements.

When complaining the receptionist said they were fully booked and couldn't change the room and that the only option would have been a paid upgrade, I was really shocked by this answer, I would have expected a 5 star hotel to take care of these issues without asking for money, it's entirely their fault if the room is not up to the standards, not mine.
My wife complained again for the noise and they offered a different room but it was next to the lifts, so we would have heard the people coming and going all the time because of the bad soundproofing, so we decided it was better to find an alternative and run away.
When we went away they told us "if only you would have told us earlier we could have done something", but we did, and actually we had requested quiet rooms from the very beginning, both via email and over the phone when I booked, and they didn't do anything.

About 99% of the customers we saw around with my wife were senior people, at least from 65 years old onwards, so I think they are less sensible to noise or smell problems but for us it was really unbearable.

A few more random issues:
- The cleaning lady was knocking at my door at 9am, I was still sleeping and although I hadn't the "do not disturb" sign on the door, I think it's way too early to disturb the guests
- The gym is really old and some equipment is border line broken but on top of that there's (was?) a huge wasp nest outside one of the windows and they keep all the windows open, so it's really hot in there during the day and the wasps are flying around
- The shower was weird, the entrance was on the side, about ±15cm away from the basin, so you had to be very careful when entering and exiting the shower to not slip as it would be instant death most likely, of course there wasn't really space to put the towel on the ground
- You would assume they know how to cook scrambled eggs but they were sweet, like they put sugar in them, and the bacon was really extremely chewy, very challenging to eat
- You would assume at least that they would know how to do a decent coffee in an Italian 5 star hotel but it was burnt and extremely acid, I had to pour three sugars in it to make it drinkable
- The lead waiter was asking for money to the waiters to fix his car, why would you do that in front of the guests?
- Never seen a slower WiFi, it was hard-capped to 5mbps, like in the 2000s, it was really slow and kept dropping the connection
- The staff in general is polite but in some cases not professional or rude, in one occasion at the reception two hotel employees had a fight and the police and an ambulance had to come
- The structure has a lot of issues here and there, it's clearly not well maintained

The only positive comment I have for this hotel is for the personeel at the restaurant (well most of them), they were really nice and professional.

The hotel is huge. I visited it in August. Room: Nice and fairly spacious, though I didn’t like the shower curtain instead of a screen. Food: Good overall. Pools: Pleasant and relaxing, but a bit small. Spa:The beauticians were very caring and skilled, but I was disappointed with the service. I wanted to buy a face cream, but the young girl with white hair and lots of earrings struggled to open the lotion, saying her hands were too sweaty. After receiving assistance, she applied the lotion to me with her sweaty hands. I declined to purchase the lotion, as I did not find this level of professionalism acceptable for a 5-star hotel. Despite requesting information and disposable applicators, a significant language barrier made it impossible to provide them.

Very bad wheelchair accessibility in rooms. No help for the disabled from the stuff in the dining room.