I had done much research into our hotel choice as we had a relatively small budget. Most hotels were very expensive and the price of this seemed too good to be true. We booked our room in hotel filippo which is owned by same people. We went to filippo but were brought down the street to hotel simone which was even closer to termini. The lady who welcomed us was so nice and then we saw our room. It was perfect. Clean, well laid out and very comfortable. There was a very good free wifi. The tv had hundreds of satellite channels but not too many english channels. Managed to find few on last night. If I could stay in a hotel like this in every city break we have I would be very happy.
It is a bit of a odd setup if you are used to traditional hotels. It is basically a large apartment or two divided up into rooms. It works very well though. They were on the second floor of a old traditional apartment block. All very traditional building, vey secure and nice clean common area.
I think a previous review of this or one of the other hotels said that the noise of the bin trucks kept them awake. If that is all they can give out about then that's ok. We heard a bin truck last night on our last night, at about 11. It was gone after about a minute.
Another previous review said they could have got a better hotel in better location for same money. Location here is perfect. It is 5 minute walk from where all the tour buses go from. 2 minutes from the train station where all the links to the airports go from. Also we happened to bump into neighbours of my parents who were in Rome too and they had a nightmare of a hotel on the same street. It was all glamorous in the communal areas then their room was disgusting with no sockets etc!!!
You get a voucher for breakfast each day which is in a coffee shop around the corner. Lovely coffee and pastries and more than adequate to start the day!!!
I cannot recommend this hotel enough. It was a lovely little retreat in a busy bustling historic city. If you want to sit in a hotel room watching tv and have room service this is not for you. If you want a beautiful room in nice building in a nice safe area convenient for seeing the sights this is perfect! I have marked low on fitness centre and room service because they don't have any! They do have a mini bar which is reasonably priced but it also has lots of spare room in fridge for your own snacks, drinks etc!
And another note, check all your restaurant bills. We caught them out in a few places adding extras onto the bill!!!
Note to owners of hotel simone, I was in room 301 From 19th - 23rd September 2011 and just wanted to thank you for a lovely stay in Rome this week. you have a lovely hotel and I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone.
Regards
Owen
