Family Apartment

Whilst the apartment we were in was located in the heart of the Duomo and I am not disputing the great location of the apartment, the rudeness we encountered at check in was unforgivable. We drove to Florence and we were expecting that the reception office would be open until 8pm as advertised. We arrived in Florence around 7pm, having previously called to tell reception about our ETA. We called the office and no one answered. The location was very difficult to find. With two families and 4 kids, the two moms set out to look for the reception office. Finally with some luck, they managed to find it, only to be berated by the sole working staff (who was on the phone the whole time and that was why we couldn’t get through) for (1) not informing him that we are coming by car (2) not having all our passports on us - because they are in the car (3) just simply asking the wrong questions. Having been on the road for almost 4 hours, the manner in which the staff treated us was appalling. We may not speak perfect English, but we were definitely understandable and nothing was lost in translation. The sole staff - I would not name him here - was condescending and frankly, in my view, treated the women with misogynistic undertones. Rather than being helpful and assist the two moms, who by then had four tired kids and two husbands who were in the cars desperately looking for answers such as “where is the car park”, the staff raised his voice, visibly showing his frustrations and was just simply rude. Anyhow, going back to the apartment. We had two apartments, one was located near the Duomo and the other near the Uffizi. As mentioned, we have no qualms about the location - but the quality of the apartments leave much to be desired. The toilets have a bad smell. I am not entirely sure if there had been a thorough cleaning. As for the car park - there is none provided by the Family Apartments. It’s a separate garage that charges around 30 euros a day. So do not be mistaken about parking availability. They have a cooperation with a garage nearby whose service is another post for another day - just to say once you give them your car don’t expect to get it back until the day you leave the city. This post is not so much about the quality of the hardware but more about the frustrating experience we had with customer service. I would not and would recommend no one to use this service again.

Our family of 4 was blown away by the location of our apartment booked through Signoria Family Apartments. We stayed in the Duomo apartment which was literally on the piazza of Florence’s famous Duomo. Being so centrally located, it was a bit noisy. We considered this a fair trade off. Saturday night was very noisy - probably because thousands of locals from the region had come to Florence to take part in a peaceful demonstration against a far right candidate. The other nights weren’t as bad, but the street vendors start dragging carts across the cobble stones quite early so don’t expect a sleep in! The bells of the Duomo are also pretty loud and go at random times (5.45pm???) but we felt so fortunate to be there listening to them. The apartment itself has beautiful high ceilings with exposed beams and was very spacious and comfortable. The view is of the side street, not the Duomo itself. One of its best features was the lift. It can be really hard to drag heavy suitcases up multiple flights of stairs and quite dangerous getting them back down again. The lift is accessed via a flight of stairs, and was small so required multiple trips, but we would have really struggled without it. I can’t speak highly enough of the service from Mustafa, Christi and Gwendoline. They were in contact before our visit with useful info (like directing my family to wait at the address of the apartment while I collected the keys to minimise dragging luggage through the streets). There were also some lovely surprises for the kids in the apartment - a collection of board game-style toys and some custom made activity books about Florence. There is a phone in the apartment with a direct link to the office, so they are easily reached if you need anything. There is also a really good supermarket in the side street, making it really easy to self cater. Having young children we tended to eat breakfast and dinner in the apartment - the kitchen had an oven, microwave and toaster, along with plenty of pots and pans, utensils, crockery and cutlery. Not sure if it was user error, but the washing machine didn’t clean our clothes at all and just left them dripping wet, no matter how many times we tried the spin function. Not a big deal, but worth noting if you are expecting to do laundry during your stay. We really loved our stay in Florence and would book this apartment again in a heartbeat.

Our apartment in Florence was great. It had everything we needed, and when we needed help or made suggestions they were acted upon. It was located in the pedestrian area of Florence so it was very quite. One should take note that the apartment we stayed in has a number of stairs before you get to the elevator. This was not an issue for us but it might be for someone else.

We had a great 2 nights in this spacious apartment. The staff was lovely and accommodating. Only negatives are a long flight of stairs which was fine for us but could be a problem for someone with mobility limitations.