It is a very small single floor 3-4 rooms hotel?. plus point - it is VERY clean. Make sure to come with location map. All buildings are looking same and no body in the area knows the hotel. There are no signboards even. Only a small sign-card along with calling bell. As the staff is not always at hotel, inform early when u r arriving. Be prepared to lock and unlock many doors! Locality is safe but there are some strange people on roads as it is very near Termini. But again Safe enough.

As others have reviewed, this is a small establishment in a building and not very well marked. It's advisable to print some directions (we had a Google map) and look for When in Rome on the buzzer by the door as its in a building that is also residential so doesn't readily stand out as a hotel. I should note that as a female traveller, on both stays I never felt unsafe walking at night to and from the hotel.

I had stayed at When in Rome with a friend at the end of April 2010, and when returning to Rome this May with my mother booked at this hotel again. The hotel is only a few minutes walk from Termini station which contains the Metro, and really couldn't be more convenient for visiting Rome. On my first stay, we buzzed up and someone met us downstairs and escorted us up. On the second visit, nobody was at reception when we arrived. Just arriving off a flight from Canada which was delayed by a few hours, and having no phone, we were a bit upset. We were not told that there would be no one there, and although on the previous visit I had noticed that reception is not staffed 24/7, I thought they only left after all guests arrived that day. We lugged our suitcases down the street and found an internet cafe with phones, and managed to call the number listed by the buzzer for When in Rome. By the time we walked the half block back to the building, someone was there to greet us and let us in, asking why we arrived at that time (only around 4 pm.) to which we expained the late flight arrival. I think our exhausted expressions explained it all.

The elevator is extremely small, and it was a struggle to fit two of us and our suitcases (although small and carry on size) plus backpacks, but it was operational. We were given keys to come and go as we pleased, but note that you will have a key for the building, another gadget to call the elevator, a key to open the door to the floor, then another for your room. The key to the floor is large and bulky and you will have to keep these on you. At reception we were given a map, breakfast vouchers to use at a cafe around the corner (cappuccino and pastry - they did substitute juice for the cappuccino.) The cafe was always busy and breakfast was adequate. Reception was friendly and on both visits pointed out all the main attractions on the map for us. The credit card machine was not working on arrival, so we paid in cash. We were given the option to pay the next day though if we needed to visit a bank machine.

On both visits I found the hotel to be kept acceptably clean. On a few occasions the shared bathrooms were a bit wet after others had showers, but we brought shower sandals to avoid this in anticipation of having a shared bathroom. There is free wi-fi and logging on was never a problem. I never had a problem getting to sleep, but i'm a pretty sound sleeper. The walls are pretty thin, however, and if you have problems sleeping this may not be the place for you. It all depends on who you have for fellow guests. During the day reception can be loud, talking and playing music. We weren't around often during the day though, so only noticed this on the morning that we were packing to leave and it didn't bother us at all.

What I really liked about this hotel was that as we were preparing to leave and just reached the entryway to drop off our keys to reception the person at the desk asked where we were headed to next. We told him we had a train booked to the Cinque Terre, but it wasn't for several hours. Without us asking, he offered us to leave our bags in the hall, since someone would be there to watch them, and we could enjoy our last few hours in Rome. We felt that this was a nice offer, and let us see a few last things we wanted to check out that we didn't have time for during our stay.

Overall, I would recommend this hotel. It was kept clean, reception is friendly. Would I stay here again? Most likely, although the price increased significantly (about 15 euros a night I believe) from my first to second stay. Since I was running out of time to book a hotel, liked the convenience to Termini, and knew what to expect I booked my second visit at this hotel without too much research into other places. If I were to return, I would do more research into similar hotels to find out if the value is comparable. If so, I wouldn't hesitate to book here again. For a simple, clean room with free wi-fi and breakfast, close to the trains and metro, I felt this was a good deal. I gave it three stars because it was a clean, safe, no frills place to rest your head at night.

It is a very small single floor 3-4 rooms hotel?. plus point - it is VERY clean. Make sure to come with location map. All buildings are looking same and no body in the area knows the hotel. There are no signboards even. Only a small sign-card along with calling bell. As the staff is not always at hotel, inform early when u r arriving. Be prepared to lock and unlock many doors! Locality is safe but there are some strange people on roads as it is very near Termini. But again Safe enough.

We had booked this accomadation 8 months earlier and prepaid.Upon arrival we were taken to another room a few streets away, so I cannot give any reviews ,didnt even get in the door.I had read about this happening, but I thought that staying there for 5days we would be ok.I was very dissapointed, I asked why and was told it was newer??
In saying that the new roomFriendship Palace was very clean and newely repubished and the landlady was very sweet and cleaned our rooms eveyday,but a very basic room
with no tv, but did have free internet.I think the price was to high for this particular room ,but would recommend if you want a basic clean room. as far as When in Rome , cant trust them