Europa Hotel

Do not skip reading negative reviews about this hotel, because if you find any of the problems listed bellow unbearable after you already paid for you stay, youbwill not get any money back or receive any resolution from the staff. We stayed here for 2 days. It was afordable, but with a catch. You are required to pay your stay in full before ever seeing the room, and the rest of the experience is like you are staying a in hostel, read bellow for details. The staff will not care about any problem after they take your money, if you complain about anything they become even aggressive and try to intimidate you. Here is what you can expect: No parking - there are slots in front of the hotel that are always occupied, and you may only be lucky to park in front of the entrance for 20mins max to check in, if there is no delivery truck occupying it already. You must park on the street and buy cumbersome parking tickets where you scratch out a ticket for every hour you stay parked during 8AM-2PM and 4PM-8PM period, 1 euro per hour. Surroundings - you will find the area around hotel to be very poor in terms of restaurants and cafes. There is a family restaurant across the street where food is mediocre, and they will steal from you by adding 5-15 euros of imaginary items of your bill. There is one good supermarket to help you survive, but the whole area feels quite dodgy, especially if you start walking towards the sea, you will enter narrow alleys full of garbage and suspicious men outside - avoid going out alone or during the night. Aircondition - as soon as you walk in the hotel you will be greeted with weak aircon, same throughout the building including rooms, which will leave you sweating the whole night. With temperatures going above 35C by 10AM, be sure you can endure high temperatures for 24h during your stay. Reception - unpleasant staff that barely or does not speak English at all. The receptionist looked super confused when we wanted to check-in, could not answer any questions due to lack of English skills, requested us to pay everything in advance, and did not want to let us into the room before 3PM. We got there at 1.30PM and were sitting in the hot lobby for 40mins, waiting for our room, while the stuff was giving us angry looks for just being there, until they realised we are not going to leave and they gave us the key to the room. The building - though you may not expect luxury at this price, don't expect the basic comfort either. The hotel is very old, and you feel like in the 70s, in a bad way. It has 7 floors with small claustrofobic elevator with such a small door that a large person cannot fit inside, and take ages to arrive, especially during breakfast time. If you are not thin, fit and highly mobile, I do not know how you would get to the room. Rooms - our room was clean, that is about all the positives. Everything is old, except for the TV in our room. Water taps make screaming noise that will wake up all your fellow travellers if you try to wash your sweating face during the night. Shower has barely any water preassure, plus the theme of being incompatible with larger people continues. Like stated in other reviews, walls are paper thin, so thin you can hear everything, like people were in your room talking all night. You will feel just like being in a hostel, but without an option to ask noisy guests to be quiet, since you would have to go to all the rooms around you. Staff is unwilling to do anything about this, and chances are you will have someones staying there for low price and screaming to each other or their phone the whole night, so be prepared to have very little sleep. That is, if you can fall asleep on the mattress that has been replaced 3 decades ago, and gives absolutely no back support. Due to an emergency back home we had to leave after 2 days, even though we paid in cash for 4 days of stay. We asked the staff if we could be refunded, even partially, for they days we are not going to use, since they can rent our room for 2 full days. They said we have to send an email after we leave the hotel, of course only to give us a negative answer with zero compassion, understanding or explanation. If you are used to sleeping with 20 people in the same room in a hostel with no air-conditioning, parking or any type of creature comfort, you might enjoy your stay. Anybody expecting a hotel level service, read all the negative reviews before making the decision to stay here, most of them are telling the truth that we experienced.

the STAFF is what makes this hotel! the man who greeted us at the Front Desk was extremely professional, friendly, ready to answer all our questions.. and GIUSEPPE at the breakfast buffet (which was complete and very good) treated EVERY single person as a private guest.. he deserves a special mention the hotel was located about 10mins walk to the Old Town, in a quieter area.. just what we needed and the price was very reasonable

Located close to the center of Palermo is an excellent solution for those who want to visit the city comfortably. It would need a general but still valid modernisation. Great breakfast, courteous and helpful staff