When we initially booked our trip to Rome, we booked at the Courtyard near the airport. We had an early morning flight out of Rome on our last morning, and it seemed like a good idea to be close to the airport. When we contacted Manilo Tranquilli, our driver from Limousine Service in Rome, he told us how far the hotel actually was from Rome. That had us rethinking some of our original plans, and after checking on line, we booked the Rome Marriott Park Hotel.
The hotel itself is located about midway between Fiumicino Airport and the Rome city center. If you are coming here without renting a car and without hiring a private car to take you around, this is probably not a good option for you in terms of location. Nothing seemed very far away when we were driving, but this is certainly not the place where you walk out the door and hop into a taxi to take you where you want to go. There is a shuttle bus from the hotel to downtown. Because we had a driver, we did not utilize this service, but there is a per person fee to use the shuttle.
The hotel itself definitely stands out in it’s location. Surrounded by light industry and apartments, the building is enormous and easily spotted from a distance. It’s distinct shape adds to the uniqueness of the hotel, especially when compared to the other non-descript architecture in the area. When you enter, you are greeted by a massive space, warmly decorated, with beautiful marble everywhere. The wall at the far end of the lobby is all windows, which brings in light to give the whole lobby a warm glow. This hotel was built as a convention facility, and while it is not heavily occupied right now, it still seems that it would be plenty big for a good sized convention crowd.
We were grateful that the front desk attendants were fluent in English, because we are certainly not fluent in Italian. We booked three rooms, because there is a two person per room limit. They did, however, bring a roll away bed into our room for the baby. The only really bad thing about the whole deal was we had hoped to get connecting rooms. As it was, we ended up in a room on one floor, and the other two rooms were on another floor. In figuring out who was to go where, we ended up putting Brighid and Eilis in one room next door to Dot and Russ, and we took Granuaile.
The rooms are beautifully appointed, large, and comfortable. The bathroom is all done in Italian marble – although our bathroom was a bit odd. The other two rooms had a separate shower and bath tub. Our room did not, but the tub had no shower curtain or door, so you showered with the water spraying all over the bathroom. Weird.
Granuaile quickly adapted to the bidet – it was the perfect height for her to use to wash her hands. Yep. She did.
The restaurant, La Brasserie, was completely open, as if it were an extension of the lobby. They featured a full breakfast buffet as well as a dinner buffet, which could be ordered as an alternate to the menu items. The restaurant was bright – as it was up against the wall of windows – and clean; and the meals we ate here were just fine – not great, but good.
As a platinum member, Jim gets a gift each time he checks into the Marriott. We got a gift in each room here, so we ordered bruschetta for two rooms – Dot and Russ’ room and our room – and gelato for the third room, which actually came to our room, where the kids sat and ate. They thought it was awesome. The bruschetta was very good, but a little different than what we get in the states.
We also had access to the executive lounge during our stay, which was nice to grab a cup of tea or a cappucino. There were sodas, cold water, nuts, juices, Pringles, fruit, biscotti, and a few other things to snack on.
One odd thing – the place really invites you to walk around. You can go out at the restaurant and over to the pool, walk all around the outside, check out the views. But then you can’t get in! There is only one door – which takes you back into the restaurant – that lets you back in. Coming in from the pool, it was a little awkward walking in wet suits through the restaurant area to the elevators. Fortunately, we had cover ups.
The staff we encountered were all friendly and helpful, and we had none of the problems with attitude I’ve seen other people report in other reviews of the hotel.
We would definitely stay here again in the future.