Bio Hotel Raphael - Relais & Châteaux

The hotel itself is great. Location is really good. Easy to get to many cool Rome locations. Staff at front desk is very accommodating. Pleasant and a pleasure to work with. The restaurant service is slow and they seem often off put by your request. Try getting a drink at night. Good luck. The bar is atrocious and service worse. They are nearly disappointed to see you when you walk in without reservation. Hard to rate the hotel a 5 when restaurant staff and service is so bad. Not sure I will be back for this price.

I'm sorry to say that I would not recommend the Raphael. I am a big fan of Relais &x Chateaux properties, but the Raphael is not up to R&C standards. To be fair, the location is fantastic--tucked away on one of the quieter streets and walking distance to just about anywhere you'd like to go. We also found the staff to be warm and friendly. And the breakfasts were delicious, with lots of variety. But . . . the rooms were quite small. My husband and I were there with our adult daughter for four nights. One of our two classic double rooms was upgraded to a junior suite. My husband and I took that and put our daughter in the smaller room. That upgrade saved us from cutting our losses and moving to a different hotel. The room we were initially assigned was simply too small to be comfortable--and certainly not for four nights. The junior suite, however, was plenty spacious. Some of the furniture and fixtures are worn--and not in an antique kind of way, more in an old, worn out, and in ill repair kind of way. Both rooms were quite hot with poor ventilation, so even opening the window did little to provide relief. If you do book the Raphael, get a junior suite at a minimum and try to negotiate the price down. Current prices (or at least, the price we paid) are well above the value delivered, in my opinion. I've posted a couple of examples of the repair issues I noticed. Just not what I expect at an R&C property.

We have stayed at The Raphael almost every time we come to Rome. It is a beautiful small hotel with great service. I would say that on this trip we travelled with a number of family members and it was difficult to get facecloths in any of our rooms which was odd. Overall a very reliable home base in Rome.

At best a 2 star hotel from the 50s. Furnitures is so old, it should be embarrassing for the owner of this property. There was mildew on the bathroom, all the grouts are old, humidity stains on the ceiling, wood damages on the baseboards. The mattress was really poor quality. The carpet in the stairs had holes. All pictures are misleading on the website. It is not a luxury hotel and not a luxury experience.And it should not be a Relais & Chateaux