The hotel staff is definitely interesting - there's a language barrier and you feel like you're bothering them every time you go near the desk. Although when our train tickets never arrived at the hotel, they did try to help us!

There's a small grocery store/internet cafe that was awesome, we went there a lot!

The hotel is not next to any major sights, but it is near many trolleys and buses. It was pretty easy to get around.

The breakfast was just ok, but was free. The rooms were bare, but we didn't spend too much time there. The hallways are very long and winding and the hotel is MUCH bigger than it seems.

Worth the stay if it's a good price.

Recently stayed at the hotel on my honeymoon booked through Gate 1 Travel as part of a Venice, Florence, Rome package. Im not sure if its the "norm" there or not, but there was a mass group of College students staying at the hotel on a big college group trip. I think it was a couple different schools there at once actually. The day we checked in I thought there was a line out the door to check in because there were hoards of kids with their luggage, in the lobby and streaming out the front door, I couldn't get in so I stood in line. After a minute or two I asked if this was the line to check in, and they said no, so they had to pass the word up to everyone to part the red sea and let us through to the counter. The room was small but efficient. Luckily when I was checking in I told them that I was on my honeymoon and hoped for a nice room. (I heard some rooms are nicer than others there, for the same price, maybe on different floors) then they told me they gave me a good room. Thank God we weren't on the same floor as the massive group of college kids because the hallways are all solid and tile on the floor, which works like an amphitheater for sound traveling down the hall, so it can get pretty noisy in the rooms. My wife likes sleeping with the TV on anyway, so we kept the TV on at night and that helped drowned out the noises that could possibly keep us up in the halls at night and in the mornings. The breakfast seemed pretty typical to what I had experienced in my previous hotels in Italy, nothing grand but it does the job. Again with the college kids staying at the hotel it seemed like most of the time when we went to and from our room, there was a big group of them hanging out right in the lobby. It almost seemed like 85% of the people staying in the hotel while I was there was with a college group. The front desk was helpfull with my questions, but a few of them didn't seem very excited to help, kinda like it was a chore.
The 571 Bus stop is right in front of the hotel and takes you around to some of the touristy places, but don't try and take it on sunday or you will stand out there for 45 minutes like we did, and find that it doesn't run on sundays. The underground metro is a few blocks around the corner and goes to most touristy places or is within a reasonable walk to them. The little pizza shop next to the hotel right after the internet cafe, has very reasonable prices and has good pizza for something quick and good.

So all and all, check to see if there are cleaner nicer rooms available for the same price when you check in. If you can tolerate it, I would leave the TV on at night to help the hall way noise. My room was on the other side of the piazza, so I didn't hear much traffic noises.

The hotel is not near the most touristic places but there is transportation in front of the hotel.
Our room was on a 3rd floor on the main avenue side, which it make it noisy to sleep.
The thermostat seemed to not be working since the room was always very warm, therefore we need to open the windows and at that time the pollution came into the room, It was not comfortable to sleep under those conditions but we managed,
A good advise if you stay here is "bring your own towel" they use sort of big linen cloths what they call "towels" they do not dry very efficiently.
the customer service was good as well as the food.

Mike Anderson

My husband and I returned a few weeks ago from a 4 night stay at Hotel Portamaggiore and had a perfectly pleasant experience. The hotel is not super-close to most of the downtown "must-see" sites in Rome but as previous posters have said, there's a bus stop right outside the hotel (on a very convenient bus line) and the Termini station (metros and more buses) is an easy 15 minute walk... so the somewhat out-of-the-way location wasn't a big deal to us. Our room was clean, the bathroom was clean w/ plenty of towels, and the shower never flooded. The desk staff was basically helpful-- some desk clerks were friendlier than others but I was still able to pry out all the information I needed. The hotel is located on a busy piazza and our room faced directly out onto the street-- the noise was annoying at times but we were able to sleep just fine.

Oh, and the breakfasts-- some of the previous reviews make me wonder if these people have ever traveled or eaten breakfast in Europe before. The hotel breakfast is completely standard and on par with what we've gotten at countless other hotels/B&B's on the continent... bread, cheese, meat, yogurt, cereal. Yeah, the coffee sucked, but whatever-- you're in Rome, go get yourself a real cappuccino from a cafe! :-)

Overall, this hotel suited our needs just fine and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a budget-friendly place to sleep and shower while in Rome.