Such a charming place to stay in an equally charming city. We checked in to an apartment owned by…read morethe hotel just across the street. It was very spacious and clean, perfect for our family of four. There was a lift we could use in this building, as well as a washer and dryer in our unit and a full kitchen with dining area. The air conditioning worked great in hot July. The location couldn't be more perfect, right across the street from the castle and the main piazza. The innkeepers spoke enough English to get us checked in and make a few local recommendations, but I will work more on my Italian lessons for next time! The included breakfasts were so nice, lots of pastries, juices, and made to order cappuccinos. Honestly, this part of our trip was a dream, and I can't wait to come back.

Excellent location and fair pricing. Nice breakfast... We like Ferrara and we will go backread more

This isn't your average bad hotel. The staff seemed to go out of their way to be rude and…read moreunhelpful, making our stay at Hotel Ferrara a truly dreadful experience. The problems started even before we checked in. On the day of our arrival, we had a flat tire during a storm about 10 miles outside of town and called the hotel to ask whether they could tell us which taxi service served the area we were in so that we could reach the hotel. The hotel reception was quite unhelpful, telling us to search on Google. Gee, I wish I'd thought of that. When we finally arrived at the hotel we found staff who were almost all discourteous and uncooperative. One of the employees pretended not to understand me even though I speak fluent Italian and English. We were later told by one employee that the staff were expecting the hotel's new owner to replace the staff and so they didn't care about doing their jobs properly. The room was dirty and run-down - the hair dryer was broken, the room had stains on the floor and walls, cracks in the wall, and was dangerously dark - there were few lights and the ones that existed were very dim. When we complained the desk clerk first pretended not to understand even after viewing the dim room in person. She finally acknowledged the room was too dark but said it wasn't her fault and offered nothing to ameliorate the situation. We requested she give us another room. She said she would but didn't and when we followed up with other employees at reception they said she was gone and had made no arrangements to change our room. Making matters worse, in order to reach our room we had to exit the hotel, walk in the rain and cross an unavoidable giant puddle of water in the courtyard. The breakfast was truly revolting - we didn't touch it. When we complained to the kitchen staff about the dark, crusty scrambled eggs that had obviously been out for too long they made rude remarks to us. When we tried to make all this known to the people at reception they refused to allow us to speak to the hotel manager or to give us the first names of the people who had been rude so we could identify them to management. They claimed it was hotel policy not to reveal even the first name of any employee. (We later discovered this was untrue, as we heard a hotel employee mention her name to another guest.) The staff seemed to make a point of being uncivil and uncooperative. This was not only our opinion. We spoke to other guests who also could not believe this hotel was advertised as 4 stars. We contacted the hotel afterwards and tried to complain to the manager but no one responded. We also contact the hotel's management company and they too didn't respond.