Grand Hotel Olympic♡

Noise, no hot water or electricity, no bar, no mini bar, no 24 hour reception

4.0

This hotel was selected for a number of reasons. Firstly its location then facilities and finally price. It is situated on the west side of the Tiber, close to the Vatican, but also a short distance from a bridge across the river. You can easily walk into the main centre and find tourist attractions like the Piazza Navona, Pantheon and Trevi fountain. If you want to get to, for example, the Colosseum or Forum then the Metro is close by and taxis are not too expensive if there are four in your group (like us). I’d suggest using the Freeform app to book one not Uber. In the immediate area there are plenty of cafes, restaurants (not too touristy) and little bars. The shops are many and varied if that’s what you want. Now the interesting part, the hotel. It is not very big and has a 24 hour reception although the one time we needed to contact reception from our room outside of normal hours they never answered the phone! When I went down to see what was the problem the receptionist was sat reading her phone. I asked her if the phone was working and she looked sheepish and checked it. It was apparently! Forget room service because they obviously don’t have any. You can’t even get a bottle of water from them. It is advertised as having a bar and also mini bars in the rooms. It has neither. The bar is an empty space in a room near reception and the rooms only have a tiny fridge. Other issues we and people in our group experienced included: Room keys continually failing to open the door. This was so bad we asked them to reprogram it every time we walked in to avoid having to come downstairs. No hot water for showers on so many occasions that I got the manager to move us to another room. Listening in on conversations I conclude this is a widespread problem. The final straw was when they said the electricity would be switched off from 10pm to 6am! No heating, lighting or lifts. When I said this wasn’t safe in the event of fire (did the fire alarm system work? They said “we think so” lol). We came back early to avoid this potential disaster and get up the five floors in the lift only to discover the power went off 1:30am them came in at 4:30am then off again and only came on properly at 5:30am. We were woken up by this so got a very bad sleep. This was quite literally a disaster waiting to happen and should be reported to the authorities. A number of other annoyances need to be considered before you book. The hotel is close to a busy road with cars 24 hours a day and also suffers from very noisy people going home from the bars in the area. Even on the fourth floor (the room we were moved to) it kept us awake most of the night. We bought ear plugs in the end! The hotel also has large groups of schoolchildren using it with the inevitable noise at night. The rooms themselves are very dated and lacking in furniture. The curtains were hanging off the rails and the metal blinds could not be raised or lowered. The room was reasonably clean but the bathroom had mould in the corners near the shower and stains in the toilet bowl. One good point is the breakfast but I’m afraid I will avoid this hotel like the plague for the above reasons. Continually being told by the staff “it isn’t our problem it’s out of our control” isn’t good enough.

A good trip

8.0

Great location. Enjoyed being on this side of Rome. Lovely in the evening. Good restaurants and bars nearby - great atmosphere. The hotel is fairly basic but clean. The staff at reception were very polite, cheerful and helpful. Breakfast was adequate. There was nothing to complain about. It did the job.

Not a 4 star hotel. Disappointing.

6.0

No way is this a 4 star hotel. It's a 3 if I'm being generous! The rooms are basic. Our room had the curtains half hanging off the rail. Room was clean enough and the towels changed daily. The beds were hard and the pillows , of which we only got 1 each ,weren't much better. The bar that is advertised on the booking sites , wasn't open at all during our entire stay. No irons available at the hotel. Rooms are very noisy with street traffic until around midnight. On the plus side it was a nice location. 5 minutes walk to the Vatican. 5 minutes walk to the metro system, which puts you within easy access anywhere in the city. Lots of nice restaurants and a couple of nice bars nearby.

Some good points....some bad points

6.0

Let's start with the good - good location and friendly knowledgeable staff. Unfortunately that's all I can say about the good. Bad points - tired, dated, noisy hotel (absolutely no sound proofing) with a basic continental breakfast. We had a standard double which was very small and consisted of what I can only describe as camp beds with very hard thin mattresses. The bathroom was small and had an odd smell. There are no toiletries or coffee making facilities. On our first night we had a group of school children screaming, running, banging on doors in our corridor. Eventually by 2am we couldn't take anymore and told them to be quiet and go back to their rooms. We went down to reception to complain....of course no-one was there, however the teachers responsible for these children were having a lovely time down there, even though they could quite clearly hear the children running wild. They very quickly went to sort them out! The next morning we complained to the staff and they immediately changed our room and gave us a bottle of wine as an apology. Our next room was much better but once again basic and the smell from the bathroom was worse than the room before. The hotel building is a lovely old building which is slowly being modernised, however the decoration does look a bit shabby in places. If and when done properly I'm sure this hotel would be stunning. Whilst we appreciate this hotel is in a good location in a world famous capital city the room rate they charge, for the standard they provide, is pretty extortionate. Breakfast was once again basic, coffee and juices weak....but croissants fresh and tasty. We're not ones to normally complain but on this occasion we felt we needed to say something and thankfully the helpful staff did sort out our problem. They now just need to enhance their service, standards and facilities to reflect the price they charge and it would be a lovely hotel.

Great very friendly staff. Great food. Absolutely 5 star

10.0

Great location 5 mins from Vatican. Close to centre of Rome 2 minutes to bus and underground. Lots of shops around and great restaurants.

Extremely disappointing stay

2.0

I shared a twin room at the Grand Olympic Hotel in Rome in November 2025 for one night and was extremely disappointed with my experience. This property is advertised as a four-star hotel, but the room assigned (Room 56, ground floor) didn’t meet even the most basic standards of cleanliness or maintenance. There was a heavy grill on the outside of the window which was immoveable and could not be adjusted. There were no window coverings at all on the inside of the window and we had to rely on this grill for any and all privacy. By morning we found out the metal grill restricted 95% of all natural daylight in the room with a terrible view through the slats of a storage/rubbish area outside. On realising the grill was fixed I did wonder what would happen in the event of a fire as the grill operated as a permanent obstruction which is very unusual to find on the ground floor of any hotel as it creates a potential entrapment space in the room if a fire occurred. On searching I found absolutely no guest evacuation instructions in the room at all which I would suggest is a compliance issue under health and safety regulations. On the inside of the room entrance door was a no smoking sign poorly fixed to the door but nothing else [see pictures]. On the inside of the bathroom door was a generic technicians service label for fire equipment that was incomplete and not something that should be guest facing as it offered no useful information in the event of a fire for guests. It referenced door 106 which I assume is the nearest fire door but not on our level. The room itself was filthy and needed a deep clean. The air-conditioning unit was leaking, leaving water stains all down the wall with mold present and a smell of damp which was accompanied by the smell of the drain in the shower. This issue had clearly been there a considerable amount of time without being addressed. There was accumulated dirt along the skirting, hair and dirt on the floor belonging to previous occupants. The walls were full of scuff marks. The spotlights on the ceiling were carelessly overpainted. Overall, the room felt neglected, dirty and badly maintained. The second bed had no headboard and was made up with only a sheet and a light cover [about the same thickness as the sheet]. There was no duvet or warm covering at all and nothing available in the room. Meanwhile, the first bed did have a light duvet, making the inconsistency even more noticeable. The bathroom was no better: the main drench shower head was scaled over and clearly hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, and the shower gel dispenser was empty, not even an empty soap cartridge. The clothes wardrobe was damaged to the point where it blocked the fridge, making it impossible to open the fridge door. There was no security safe, no in room tea or coffee facilities or any extra pillows, blankets or coverings. The TV remote had masking tape wrapped around it to hold the batteries in because the back cover was missing. Dust was thick on surfaces; one swipe of my finger across the bedside locker left a clear line and covered my fingers in dust and dirt. When I contacted reception, I was passed to an English-speaking off duty staff member by phone. I asked to move rooms but was told the hotel was fully booked. I then asked for housekeeping to attend to the room but was informed that nothing could be done until morning as there was only the receptionist on duty and the room had been cleaned and the team were good at their job so there was no problem. I offered to clean the room myself if they would provide supplies rather than stay there as it was, but this was refused. When the receptionist visited the room, I asked about the missing duvet and was told to “turn on the heater,” despite the unit obviously leaking and surrounded by mold. Eventually, the receptionist fetched a duvet from another room, but even that had visible stains to match the stains on the bed coverings. Whilst refusing to help with the most basic of things we were then asked to contact reception if there was anything we needed! The next morning, the sink and shower had no hot water at all. Everything ran cold. Not even a hot water kettle in the room so we had to make do with cold water. No apologies from the hotel staff, not even a recognition there was a problem with the room. The only positive was the location. Otherwise, the cleanliness, room condition, and complete lack of staff support made this stay unacceptable. I have no issue with basic accommodation, but I expect it to be clean, safe, and functional. This room was none of those things, and it certainly did not reflect the standards of a four-star hotel which we paid for. I would not recommend this hotel in any way and that is unfortunate as it’s a great location. Had the hotel tried to make any efforts at all to rectify the situation I would not have made this post but they completely dismissed any problems with the room.