Hotel Sempione

Very nice hotel at a great location

What a nice hotel. I took the time finding a good hotel and this came highly rated.
Its a regular 3star hotel and I think worth it. What was surprising is the price. It is actually one of the cheapest when taking into account the amenties it provide:
Hotel had a fridge, toilet/shower ensuite(most cheap accomodation dont have this),satelite TV, Free wifi!! and also individual airco/heating. But most importantly all was clean and good working order.
They served a continental breakfast buffet and its really good. You could easily loadup for a good start of the day. (just dont expect and american/english breakfasts)

The best thing here is the service provided by the reception staff. Very knowledgble and helpfull at making reservations to restaurants and museums!!!!

Location: If you arrive at the SMN(stazione Santa Maria Novella) this place is great. Just a few hundred meters from SMN. You dont need to lug your luggage to far. From the hotel all the important places are within easy walking distance. A big plus to me the central mercato(foodmarket) is a few hundred meters away.Great place for shopping and cheap but good eating. BIG PLUS)

We stayed at room 36 on the third floor. This room clearly is meant for people with a handicap. With special showers and toilets. The room has more than enough room to manoeuvre wheelchairs.

Downside The beds were small. I guess just 70 cm wide and 200 meters long.(was a twin bedroom) I am pretty big person and the bed was very uncomfortable. Feels like i am always almost falling out of the bed.
The pillows were very thin and there was only 1 extra pillow.
So I was not able to get a really restful sleep here.

PS there is a carpark in teh neighbourhood.

Unique Quality: Again when booking a room...check about the amenities. Cheaper hotels really cut on these. And like I said this must be one of the cheapest/best values deal for what i paid.(€75 for 2 nights)

1)Service from reception personel. This was awesome. they were able to make reservations for me for the museums even though according to the meseum websites the reservations were full!!!
I cant stress enough how important this is. The infamous lines for the uffizi and accadamia are the real deal. They made this reservations for me via email 1 day before i arrived. On the mesuem websites all was full.
They are also able to make reservations for you for restaurants. Not unimportant and great service.
(PS just make sure you know where you want to eat first)

2)Free wifi. There wifi was really good. You get a free card for access. So basically only hotel guests are able to use it. Meaning wifi was very good. I used internet to plan my whole trip and it worked great. And free wifi is always great to plan the next day.

3)Location. being near SMN is great. From here you can easily explore the rest of florence on foot.
Also the area felt totally safe to me. There was some bums walking around. But even at 2300 was ok to me.
Being near the central mercator is great too.Lunch nirvana. Mario's trattoria is one of the best restaurants in Florence with one of the best and cheapest bisteccas. If you can stay out of mario's the central mercator has lots of other lunch cheap authentic lunch opportunities.