Sina De La Ville

We recently spent a week at this hotel, recommended by a friend since we were unfamiliar with the city. It could not have been better! The location is perfect. We could walk to almost all the museums and sites that interested us. The staff is extremely friendly and the breakfast is terrific. They even had some Schar gluten free products. We fell in love with Milan and will definitely return to the city and this hotel!

Service. This in my mind is the most important word when it comes to hospitality, and the one thing that can make or break an experience. We traveled to De La Ville in the heart of Milan this past weekend and up until we arrived at the airport to depart home, we had the most favorable experience anyone could imagine-the trip was perfect. Mr. Smith I have to say thank you! However, when we needed a staff member to perform the most remedial task of providing us with a simple phone number, we were berated with stubbornness, contempt and a total lack of respect. All we needed at this point to get home was the laboratory name or phone number that was provided to us a day prior by Mr. Smith when we took our PCR Covid tests at the hotel so we could get home. We figured no big deal, this shouldn???t be a problem, we will call the hotel and ask for this information. We called the front desk and Barbara answered. We were waiting for the laboratory to email our Covid results for our departing flight home as these tests were not received at the time and we were cutting it close to our flight departure so I asked for this information. ???I can not help you, I can not help you, I am the only one here and my colleague that you spoke with does not arrive until 4:00 and I can not do anything for you.??? This one-sided conversation turned to screaming match from the receiving end of the phone lasted 5 straight minutes where I could not utter a single word. I simply just needed the phone number of the laboratory that was given to us to obtain the Covid test so we could catch our flight back home. After I listened for another straight 7 minutes of ???I can not help you??? talk I figured I would try and google the name of the lab in order to get the phone number but I was unsuccessful. I called back and sure enough Barbara answers again, ???You just called and I told you I can not do anything for you. You need to wait for the results. I can not help you.??? ???But Barbara, please,??? I explained, ???I just need to know the phone number or the full name of the laboratory to get my results. That is all.??? ???No I can not help!??? Barbara snaps. ???Please, please, please, Barbara, I understand you can not help me but please can you just give me the number that was provided to us initially to call ourselves to get an answer so we can board our flight???? ???No, I cannot you have to wait.??? To make a very long story short, we called back two more times, listened to the same speech and Barbara finally gave us the number. 30 minutes of nothing, something that could have taken 15 seconds of her time all while our flight is boarding. Barbara would not let us get a word in. She would not give us three seconds to ask the phone number. A member of our party then got involved and asked her by speaking in Italian but she would not give up her ???I can not help you??? crusade against us. All in all, this was not normal behavior I???ve never been disrespected like I have been by Barbara. It was simple she could of helped us but she DID NOT WANT to help us. On the other spectrum, Mr. Smith what a wonderful human being. Polite, courteous and helpful. I do not know how these two individuals can work at the same place being complete opposite personalities. At the end of the day, we did make our flight, we did enjoy our trip, we love Milan, love Italy unconditionally and will be back again in the future. However, it just is disappointing that although we loved Hotel De La Ville, we would not go back based on one individual that being Barbara. Everything can go perfect it???s such a shame that one person can ruin an experience based on their (total lack of) service. I do want to say thank you to Mr. Smith from the bottom of my heart. He was the truest definition of a gentleman. Barbara, maybe the hospitality business is just not for you. Sincerely Room 434 July 10, 2021-July 13, 2021