Carpe Diem

the resort is north of Rome, Italy. very quiet. the on-site restaurant is excellent. the spa is clean and very large. mt wife had a massage and enjoyed it very much. the golf course next door is the venue for the 20220 Ryder Cup.

It is unbelievable!! Was a terrible experience. One month before I tried to send an email to inform them about my late check in but they don't even have an email address. Was easy to find the address but difficult to find the hotel because was not sign with its name or any other indication about it. I was very lucky I found a person going out from that building , I asked about the hotel and he said the hotel is not operating any more, the person make a phone call to the owner and he said someone will pick me up. The member of the staff arrive after 15min guiding us to another building complete different from then pictures that I saw on the Internet. It was absolute discussing, dirty and in a bad condition. At the end I didn't take the service and I started to discuss with the owner by phone because he wanted 45 euros for the reservation!!!! After that I have to look for another hotel at 11pm.

Okay, where to start. Let's start at the beginning; we booked our room at Carpe Diem B&B since it provided a decent price with breakfast included as well as a favourable location. We were aware we still had to pay city tax, but opted for this place in any case. However; upon arriving at the address stated on the website, we found nothing but confusion. There was no doorbell or sign indicating that this was, in fact, Carpe Diem B&B, but rather a list of Korean sounding names. Upon closer inspection, and entry, we found out that the building was largely occupied by Korean guest houses for the Korean tourists and students frequenting Rome. Desperate, tired and annoyed at this point, we phoned the number posted next to the front door. After calling this impossibly long number we finally got hold of an employee of the so-called Carpe Diem B&B. He then explained to us that, due to some 'electrical maintenance' or something like that, we had to be moved to another location around the corner. Baffled, but with no other options, we followed him to a building, which eventually led to our hotel 'Walter Rooms'. The welcoming mat, displaying a message saying 'I Love Money' was a sour indication of what this place is really about. The door opens to a very small common area; the table next to the mirror laden with a coffee machine and cutlery is going to be your breakfast area. There is a toilet opposite the door, but this is also used by the staff. Around the corner is a kitchen with a desk and computers, used by the staff to cook meals for themselves as well as sleep(!). The friendly Sri-Lankan man even tells us that he usually is asleep in the kitchen by twelve. Thank you. He tells us that we can use the common bathroom for no charge, but can also use our own private bathroom for an extra 5 euros a night. Naturally, since the common bathroom is also used by the staff, we opt to use our own private bathroom. Total cost: 50 euros for ten nights. Then the aforementioned city tax is added, rounding up around 94 euros extra costs. 'I love money' indeed. The cherry on the cake is about to be delivered, as we are transported to 'Walter' himself, who occupies and oversees all operations from a different building. Upon hearing that we want to pay with our credit-card, Walter vehemently objects. Walter is adamant that we pay in cash- he even offers us the option to pay the next day, in cash. Not impressed by this, we tell him we wish to pay by card anyway, adding 2% charge costs to our costs again. He reluctantly agrees. Of course, Walter knows he has to pay 15% over these cost again in taxes, so we cheat him out of a nice chunk of money. We love money too. Having paid, we enter the room (which means walking back again around the corner and into a different building). The room is fairly decent; it has a ceiling fan, a normal fan mounted on the wall, and an air-conditioning unit to fend off the Italian heat. So far so good. There is also a television mounted on the wall, which we never touch during our stay, as well as a wardrobe and some kind of desk. The bed is pretty decent, only the cushions are quite hard. The bathroom has a one-person shower and a poorly flushing toilet. Overall, it is okay, but not fantastic. The breakfast is served between 8-10 am. The breakfast is also a laugh. It consists out of stale bread with only two condiments to choose from; Nutella or jam. The coffee machine is never working properly and the stale pastries are nauseatingly sweet. A fine way to start your day if you want type 2 diabetes. We opted to eat our breakfast out after three days of this. We think the rooms are cleaned, how else could fresh toilet rolls appear in the bathroom, but the rest just seems to get a once-over look and is then not touched. Also, prepare to get friendly with your towels, because we saw only three changes of them in the course of ten days (and only after we asked for them). We never felt that the room was safe enough to leave any valuables behind, so we took most of our belonging with us. Then, after we heard an argument in the hallway with two other guests, we decided to investigate this more closely, and, boy, did we find some interesting reviews. Some of which, eerily, matched our own situation. Does Carpe Diem still exist, or is it a mere puppet used by this 'Walter', who seems to own more of these so-called hotels?