Villa Roma was a pleasant surprise, having stayed at other Catskill hotels in the past. Our room was renovated, spacious, and well-appointed, with a very comfortable bed, good A/C (important on a hot and humid weekend) and plenty of soft towels in a very large bathroom, that featured a separate W/C, shower, and bathtub. All three of us could have been using the bathroom, without getting in the other's way.



I had read previous reviews, calling it "Villa Aroma" describing shabby rooms and a dank smell - we certainly did not experience this. However, I would say that the adage "you get what you pay for" may be applicable to this hotel. Given that we had (and paid amply) for a two-bedroom efficiency suite, some of what I describe may not be found in the more traditional single-bed accommodations there. There were also complaints in the prior reviews about the service by the staff - our experience was in the a la carte food areas of the hotel (the ice cream parlor, the restaurant, the bar, etc.) where we found the young mostly college-age staff enthusiastic and attentive to our needs, although not generally knowledgable, but again this is the Catskills, and we expected this. We did not pay for meals as part of our room, so I cannot comment on the dining room experience.



On the negative side, the hallways were very noisy and poorly insulated from the room - there was a lot of people yelling and walkie-talkie noise that we heard as we were trying to go to bed or stay asleep in the morning. The hallway to our room was in the direct path of the waiters to the main dining room (there should be a traffic light there to allow them/us to cross safely) so I had some close encounters, though fortunately without incident. I also cite the poor strength and low bandwidth of the wireless internet, and the malfunctioning coffee maker in our room.

I spoke about the wireless internet with a customer service worker, who said it was due to high usage by a large number of persons at the hotel at the time. It was included in the price of our accommodations, so at least we were not charged extra for it.



The public areas of the hotel were clean and not foul-smelling, although certainly some areas needed refurbishing and still had a 50's/60's look to them. We did not get full use of the facilities, as our primary reason was to pamper our teenage son for the weekend, who is working at a local camp as a CIT, by giving him a place where he could have air conditioning, a good night's sleep, full access to ESPN, and a clean shower, in pleasant surroundings. The Villa Roma met and exceeded expectations in all these areas. Many other families in our situation were also there, which gave him good "hanging out" time with his CIT buddies.



I will say that it does attract a lot of family groups, such as reunions and big family birthday parties, and does attract more of a blue-collar clientele in general than the other Catskill hotels, but that did not significantly interfere with what we sought from our weekend there.