The location of this hotel was excellent for us. It's a 15min walk from the train station with somewhat heavy luggage. If you are not a fast walker, it may take you 20, assuming you don't get lost. The location was excellent because it was so close to the Duomo, shopping, food, and also convenient to the Uffizi museum, and, really everywhere. It's a great central location.
Also, the service by Franceso and the cleaning ladies, was excellent. There was another guy Franceso was possibly training during the day and he was very helpful too.
I give the location and service 5 stars. I give the room, 3.5. It had an overhead fan, but it was getting chilly when we were there and I cannot attest to the a/c which was unneeded on our trip this time of year. The room was very clean but had a dorm room feel, very bland, a cold white floor, and our room had a sink in it 3 feet from the furthest twin bed (and not separated by anything). In an odd way it made us feel like we were in a bedroom/bathroom. We ended up in a room that did not have a bathroom inside of it, but outside the room maybe 10 feet away and marked "private". We were told that was to be our private bathroom. Walk in the bathroom & you are walking right through the shower (yes, you read that right) and then into the space with the toilet and sink. The sink did not work, hence the sink in our room. We did not like that and washed our hands in the shower after using the toilet. So this bathroom was the bane of our issues with the hotel and the reason I only gave 4 stars, though we didn't complain. One side of the toilet was so close to the wall that my hip would be touching the cold wall if I sit straight on the toilet and not to the side. I am a tall but not overweight woman either. A heavyset person would be uncomfortable with this. I was.
The shower drained fine but then the floor will be wet when you are walking though the bathroom because of this odd set up, so we showered at night and after drying the floor a bit with the bathmat, it would be dry in the morning and during the day. However, this is a fall risk. We got used to it though, it's an old European bathroom so that's just that. We bought pool flip flops (not easy to find there) because, you are traipsing through the shower in your street shoes on the way to the toilet. Our 2nd night there we were asked by the older desk clerk who speaks little English, if we would share our bathroom with a couple downstairs because their shared bathroom wasn't working. That was very upsetting to us because we paid for a private bathroom and he wouldn't have asked us if we had had a bathroom inside our room. We said no, let them share one with the other shared bathroom people on the 2nd floor, not our private bathroom. He was annoyed with us and said he'd talk to Francesco in the morning. We never had any further discussion on it but felt that someone was coming in and out of or bathroom anyway over the next 2 days (there is a key and we kept it locked but found it unlocked several times the rest of our stay, and once, in the evening the toilet was running and couldn't be flushed which means it had just been used so we knew it wasn't the maid just coming in and out forgetting to lock it). This was very distressing but we decided to just let it go and not go crazy. It was because Francesco was so nice that we didn't want to complain about something we could not prove since we didn't actually see anyone go in or out of it.
My advice is, just get a room with a bathroom IN IT. The helpfulness of Francesco cannot be understated. He was an immense help when I was trying to call my bank because they put a hold on my account despite having told them I would be overseas beforehand. He helped me try to use my calling card and when it didn't work, he let me call from the front desk phone (it was a 3-4 min call) and didn't charge me because he could see I was headed for a meltdown. He also allowed us to use the main restroom to clean up when we initially arrived there the first day, several hours before check in. So the service and friendliness by him, his assistant and both of the housekeepers was excellent and I left them a little bag of gourmet cookies as a last minute thank you because I truly liked them. Towels were changed every day. Breakfast was continental. Just get a room with a bathroom in it if that's important to you.
- Centro Hotel Florence
- Best Western Florence
