Grand Hotel Olympic

Recent Reviews: 582

• User:millomite

  Trip type: Friends getaway

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

  13 Mar 2026

  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.

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• User:Sara B

  Trip type: Couples

  A good trip

  12 Mar 2026

  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.

• User:626andreaw

  Trip type: Couples

  Not a 4 star hotel. Disappointing.

  09 Mar 2026

  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.

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• User:Stephanie L

  Trip type: Couples

  Some good points....some bad points

  09 Mar 2026

  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.

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• User:Janusz B

  Trip type: Family

  Great very friendly staff. Great food. Absolutely 5 star

  10 Dec 2025

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