Grand Hotel Duca D'Este

Welcoming structure, staff are attentive and helpful to customer needs. Old rooms of 90’s, however renovated, very quiet and clean, but still to improve. No kettle, no wipes, no slippers, no shaving mirrors. Excellent dinner and the Breakfast. Excellent possibility of free outdoor parking. Good location. Easily accessible by public transport also. I stayed for three nights at this hotel along with group package tour.

Let's start with the positives ... Great pool. Comfy bed. Wifi works well. Mostly friendly staff. Good bus link to Rome. Just stay on the bus, until the end, then you are right at a Metro train station. €1.50 ticket from Tobacco shop across the street. Room for improvement .... Towels and soap. I was solo. I was staying there for 8 days. I always hung up my towels. Each day I got 4 new towels (bath towel, 2 hand towels & a bath mat). 1 person x 8 days x 4 towels = 32 towels ... for one person !!!! .... absolutely bonkers. 

Soap. I opened a bar of soap. Washed my hands twice. After room serviced, it had been removed & there were two new bars. I left a note the next day, saying 'please don't throw away' !!! On day 4, ( there appeared a card in the bathroom), saying if you are happy to use your towel again, hang it up. If you want a fresh one, leave on the floor. Great ... so all mine hung up .. came back .... 4 fresh towels .... maybe someone forgot to explain the concept to housekeeping ?? When you go down to the pool, they want to charge you €3 for a pool towel. I'm not paying for a pool towel, when I get 4 (unnecessary) new ones every day ! I just brought down my large hand towel ... which I then hung up - to use again, but of course I got a fresh one ..... If you are English & need a decent cup of tea, you are going to struggle. No kettle in the room, & not available, when I asked at reception.... I had my own teabags & milk !
 Breakfast only has small cups & the water isn't boiling ... so a 'not very hot' cup of tea, divided over 2 small cups ... not good !! During the day, you can get hot water from the pool bar, their cups are tiny, suggest taking the paper cups from your room (double cup so you can hold), the paper cups in the room are larger. I ended up taking paper cup from room to breakfast in the morning ... although the water isn't boiling, it's (almost) the right size cup !! The do have tea bags at breakfast. Apparently the lower 2 floors have been renovated, but upper 2 floors haven't. I was on the 2nd floor. room advertised as having a desk. It didn't. Had a small, circular, wobbly table, gggrrr, I needed to work ! For dinner, restaurant doesn't open until 7.30 .... & the food isn't great ... most of our group went down the road to eat each night.

The room is not adequate enough. They have n't even provided complimentary water bottles. Breakfast was also not worth it. The behavior of staff members was the worst. They have n't replied properly. The varieties are also very poor. Fruits are very minimal. If the behavior of staff members is like this, the hotel will lose its reputation. Don't choose this hotel if you want a better and pleasant stay.