Hotel berhampiran Padua Central Station, Padova

The hotel Donatello is well located across from the city's Basilica di San Antonio, and about 5 minutes from the famous Prato della Valle and 10-15 from the city centre and old city (university, ghetto, daily markets, pedestrian street, etc). From the outside, the hotel looks quite elegant and I suspect that front facing rooms have a nice view. To be honest, however, everything else about the hotel was rather disappointing. Rooms are actually tired and pretty gloomy. The single rooms are extremely small, the doubles are of decent size but tend to overlook blind narrow courtyards and feel rather dark and a bit depressing with a decor that seems stuck in the 1970s. Cleanliness is variable, lighting unpleasant, and whilst beds are decent, the pillows are hard and quite uncomfortable. Breakfast is quite poor. If you come when one of the ladies taking care of the breakfast room are around, they will prepare you a decent coffee from the barista machine, however, if they are not, it is a fairly ghastly automatic machine that uses instant coffee to make ”fake” espressos and cappuccino which is used instead. Juice is a strange watery thing from a machine. The best part are the nice homemade cornetti (croissants filled with jam, cream or chocolate) but apart from them, fruit, salad, bread, etc are all of poor quality and the scrambled eggs and meat are stone cold. There is a toaster which doesn't seem to work well and mediocre bread. Service in the hotel is not very friendly - reception staff ranged from reasonably cordial to barely polite and in one case, outright unpleasant. In short, the place is certainly not horrible, but equally, it doesn't seem too bothered about customers let alone interested in making them want to come back. A bit of a wasted opportunity given the nice location they fail to capitalise on.

I travel a lot and I feel the oligation to warn you about that hotel if you like comfort and silence. It is clean but very old design (50s or 60s maybe...) - you feel like at your grandma's home - I will try to add picture to my comment. In addition of the old design, my room (309) was very small. The wall is so thin that I heard everything (every every everything...) that happened in the next room. The shower is very small. The TV is very small too. In ocotber, they turned off the Air Conditioned so It was very warm in that small room. And the last bad thing but not the least: i pre paid for 5 night. Because of a strike at the airport, I had to shorten my stay for 1 night. The girl at the lobby never wanted to be comprehensive and they billed the 5 nights even if I stayed only 4... She lied a lot saying that she asked to her management etc (it was not possible, she hasn't enough time to call...and I think the boss was just near her...) It is a shame for an hotel to refuse to cancel one night when you tell them 2 days before... I sincerly advise to avoid that hotel.

Air Conditioning blows warm. Not cold not cool, warm. Front desk informs you to play with the thermostat. Yep… still not working. Switched rooms to AC that was “working”. Same situation and later found many reviews stating the same. Obviously hotel looking to save $$ on thermostat settings. Additionally as American not one channel in English nor the ability to switch languages on the remote. Hotel fine for locals who are not needing Air Conditioner nor English speaking channels. Pass.

I like hotel chains. When I see the name of the hotel, I more or less know what to expect. Crowne Plaza Padova is a real example. Spacious room, friendly staff, hygiene as expected. The hotel is 8 km from the center, which meant a 10-15 minute drive to the center and parking in the spacious parking lots next to the old town. The hotel has a large parking lot and also its own garage, and everything is included in the price. Breakfast is a bit on the ”Italian side”, more sweet than savory, but that's common in Italy. Enough for full satisfaction for two nights.

Hotel fuori dal centro, non ha il parcheggio custodito. I bagni hanno bisogno di manutenzione perché c’era la tavoletta del wc che si muoveva, e pure il miscelatore della doccia…invece lo scarico della doccia scaricava lentamente. Una luce in bagno era bruciata. Serve più manutenzione sugli alberghi. Il letto invece era comodo, peccato per le pareti in cartongesso dove senti il vicino di camera se russa di notte.

L'albergo è in posizione strategica, a pochi chilometri da Padova e ben collegato con gli altri centri del Veneto. La struttura è accogliente, con un grande parcheggio e un ampio giardino. Colazione abbastanza ricca e variegata. Stanze ampie e ben accessoriamente. Piccolo appunto: sono capitata nei giorni in cui è stato effettuato il taglio delle coltivazioni di soia e la zona risultava quindi infestata dalle cimici (da non confondere con le cimici da letto che sono un'altra cosa e che non erano presenti all'interno dell'hotel). L'albergo ha preso tutte le accortezze del caso per evitare disagi alla clientela a causa degli insetti. Nonostante tutto in camera ho trovato alcune cimici uccise dagli spray utilizzati. Un disagio subito risolto con grande efficienza e disponibilità. Per il resto il soggiorno è andato alla grande.