Hardly a 5 star experience
Service is supposed to be transparent, not non-existent. Unfortunately, my experience at the Intercontinental Hotel de Ville in Rome presented me with non-existent service. Calling oneself a five star hotel does not make it one. As this was my first visit to both this hotel and to Rome, I do not know if my experience was part of a deficit in the Intercontinental training program, poor management at this hotel property or some facet of the Roman persona. However, it was consistent with all personnel I encountered except for a brief encounter with the housekeeping staff and a bartender. When I checked in, the staff at the reception desk seemed to examine me, deciding if I passed some kind of worthiness factor before assigning me a room. I must not have. I paid approximately $1500.00 for a seven-night stay. The hotel accepted my bid; It should not have relegated me to some kind of steerage-class treatment. There was no, “Welcome to the Intercontinental”, no other greeting. The only difference between my reception and that at a Motel 6 was there was no bulletproof glass between the staff and me. The room was clean, not particularly well appointed, a little threadbare, on the small side and facing a very noisy street. I seldom saw anyone in the hotel, either in the small lobby area or in the cocktail lounge. They might have assigned me a room with a better view, larger, whatever. This room had a listed maximum rate of 973 Euros, My son and I ordered room service our first night in the hotel. The server was only perfunctory in his service, hardly gracious or polite. In entering our room and in negotiating the tiny space between the bed and the desk, he actually kicked my shoes out of his way. The food, perhaps typical of Roman cuisine, was mediocre at best. I usually enjoy hotel food, finding it consistently better than average in the various hotel chains where I stay. I spend at least fifty nights a year in hotels.
The poached salmon with spinach was the best part of our meal even though the spinach was way over salted. The salad was good too. Surprisingly, the Italian dishes were terrible. The pizza tasted as if they had used frozen dough, undercooked, with a lackluster tomato sauce but with good cheese in the proper proportions. I eat better pizza in nearly any chain restaurant in the states. It was not indicative of pizza in Rome having eaten some great pizza there. The Spaghetti was even worse, a ball of overcooked pasta with too much sauce and parmesan cheese that looked and tasted like the stuff you buy in supermarkets in the USA. Canned spaghetti came to mind.
They should have changed the name of the reception desk to the rejection desk. When I checked in, the staff told me I needed to show them my son’s passport so that he could get his own key to our room. Later that day, we walked up to the desk and there was one woman behind the reception desk who was on the phone. I would have expected her to acknowledge our presence with some kind of facial expression, or even to look at us. She didn’t. She continued on the phone, purposely avoiding any type of acknowledgement to us. After almost five minutes on the phone, somewhat annoyed sounding and not hiding that emotion, she provided us with an additional key. I had another experience at the front desk, from a different person, who was completely aloof to me and acted like I was annoying him.
Even the doorman and the concierge avoided us. I am used to greeting people, including the staff in hotels, and am used to them greeting me. There were never any salutations from the staff in the front of the hotel. In fact, they always looked like they were avoiding us. Besides my brief interaction with a housekeeper, the bartender, in the always-empty cocktail lounge, was the only pleasant person I dealt with. He came up to me as I was standing in the vacant room and took ownership of any problems I had. The Ritz-Carlton chain must have trained him.