Hotel Colombo

It is a very large hotel, and seems to have a lot of group tour guests. My room large, but facing west and even with the shades drawn the room was warm. My AC was not functioning correctly. It would run for 1 hour at 23 degrees C, and then switch back to 29 degrees, and the room would quickly warm up. I was not aware of this until bed time. I was awake every 90 minutes or so, to reset the thermostats, try to fall back asleep as the room cooled off, and then awake again when the room was so hot I was sweating through my night clothes. Get up, reset the thermostat. Repeat. All night long! The TV in my room did not work. The swimming pool had no water. The breakfast room was a noisy chaos with very unappealing food, much of which tasted off -- cheese that tasted of mold, olives that tasted stale, milk that tasted sour. Everything was not as I would have hoped. I would certainly never stay there again.

Berat and Albania are amazing, but please stay at a different hotel!! This hotel has no regard for its guests and I’m not sure how it is classed so highly. We returned to our room after dinner out in town to the sound of loud music. Upon enquiring at reception we were told that there was a ‘last minute’ private party in the top floor function room and it would be going on until at least 1:30 am. We were offered a room on a lower level, but as we could hear the music in reception and it was past 10:30pm we didn’t feel like packing and moving rooms. The music finally stopped at 1.45am, but the guests then moved to the terrace outside and continued loudly until past 3am. Again no regard shown by the hotel for paying guests trying to sleep. We complained at reception again when checking out the next day, as their handling of the party was inexcusable. An advanced warning earlier in the day and the offer of moving rooms might have been ok. The lady on reception had been ordered to refuse any kind of refunds and the manager refused to come and speak to us about the incident. Apart from this there are plenty of other reasons for the rating of the hotel: - Average breakfast buffet with little labelling and overcooked food - Waiting staff that clear your table and food you are still eating when popping back to the buffet to get something. They even removed some personal items from the table! - The room was only set up for one person staying (one towel, robe, glass, etc) when we arrived and the reservation was for two people - The room lock would not work as the door was poorly fitted - The toilet seat was too small for the toilet - Rooms are not soundproofed at all, lots of noise clearly heard from the corridor - I emailed the hotel prior to arrival to ask about parking and received no response

Staying at Hotel Colombo is an amazing experience. We have stopped at innumerable hotels over the years but we were stunned at the sheer luxury of the hotel. Hotel names often incorporate the word "palace" but this really was like stopping in a real palace! The service was second to none and special mention has to go to Martinella who just could not do enough for us and went beyond the call of duty to ensure that our stay was most memorable.