Hotel Helvetia & Bristol

My parents and I spent two nights in July in this beautiful hotel and, as returning guests we knew exactly what to expect, and that is service, location, comfort on the highest level! And hotel certainly exceeded our expectations which were already very high! Due to noise issue I had to move to another room that is not city view and they upgraded me to a wonderful, huge junior suite. I was thrilled! Staff put satisfaction of their guests before everything else and this level of professionalism and dedication to cater your every need is really appreciated. I hope it will not be too long untill our next visit :)

We absolutely loved this hotel. Throughout our entire stay, the service was perfect and everyone was so helpful. The hotel itself is located in a great spot - convenient to the Duomo and many other places, making it super convenient. The hotel lobby is very cute with colorful couches, old paintings and a giant fireplace. Our room was huge and very clean. It is a luxury hotel but with an old world feel. I would love to come back!!

We were lucky enough to spend 5 days at this lovely old world hotel in the heart of Florence. The rooms are lovely, the breakfast has a wonderful array of foods and staff are charming. We had dealings with Davide and Alessandro and we were made to feel very welcome in fact all the staff are very obliging.

We only stayed here two nights and were grateful to leave. It was unfortunate, because the hotel is billed as ultra luxury and when you walk in you feel as though you are walking into a truly grand hotel. The lobby is tasteful, oozing old time luxury. The keys are still the old fashioned ones that you leave at the front desk - it has the potential to be a break from reality....unfortunately the devil is in the details and that made all the difference. The most important detail to note is the service. I have stayed in luxury hotels throughout the world and this has never happened to me. At breakfast, on our first morning, a waitress came over to us and asked us to move. We were halfway done with our meal, we had only been there 10 minutes, but apparently, they needed the table and wanted to move us for their convenience. We were settled in, relaxing and admittedly she did look embarrassed but she still did ask us to move and did so several times because we did not understand her the first time. For our second day breakfast, we walked in and 3/4 of the place was empty, we asked to sit in a table with the comfortable seats (of which there were several free) and the Maitre D told us they were reserved - this day we were at breakfast for 30 minutes and in that time, we only saw one of the comfy chair tables utilized after 20 minutes of us being there. The snootiness and rudeness of breakfast was outrageous for a claimed 5 star luxury hotel. Regarding the room - our room was damp - and dark - we tried to open the curtains but realized that with them open we were inundated with the sound of the air conditioning system that was located right outside our room. We didn't mind the poor view as we knew we had not paid for a better view but the noise was terrible - fortunately if we kept the heavy shades closed and the windows closed and the bathroom door closed- the noise was partially dampened but that left it dark and damp in the room. The reason why we gave it 3 stars though is because the location is incredible and we have to believe there are better rooms in the hotel - there must have been, but unfortunately, we did not get to experience that.

My wife and I were traveling with a group and we stayed 2 nights at the Helvetia & Bristol Hotel in May 2017. The property has a great location and is an easily walk to many sites in Florence. We were given room 155. It was warm in Florence and the property has air conditioning, but the air conditioning in our room did not work. There were no other rooms available and the afternoon/evening maintenance person could not fix it. Room 155 is the smallest room on the property, about the same size as the river cruise room we had spent the previous week in. 2 of our rooms could have fit into the very cold room of some friends staying at the same property, who we had met on the cruise. The hotel solution to our heat was a pedestal floor fan, which was set up in the narrow space blocking our access to the bathroom. The bathroom was also an issue as it had a 4" step up (or down if you were leaving) which could be dangerous in the darkness. Plus there was one tiny shelf about 8"x4" for storing personal items. The bathtub was so narrow that I could not stand with my feet side by side. The next day room 271 became available and we interrupted our touring and came back to our room to pack and relocate. Room 271 was much bigger, nicer and cooler. Our rating would have been higher if we had been given this room originally. Breakfast was good, but with larger crowds coffee service was slow and resupplying the buffet offerings was also slow. The front desk personnel seemed to not care about my room 155 issues, perhaps because they were full and business was good. So this would be a nice place to stay if you Avoid Room 155.