Gialel Pisa Guest House

Good
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : Room was nice and clean. Location was perfect, only 5 minutes to Pisa tower and about 15-18 minutes to Train station. Having said that, Pisa is really small town, you can live anywhere and everything will be close by and likely within walking distance.Owner was nice, they also arranged a kettle and tea bags in the room. After booking the apartment, I contacted owner for a few queries, owner was very prompt in responding to all the queries.As per our request owner also arranged a taxi for us to go to airport when checking out. Taxi while going back cost us 16.50.
  : Air Conditioning wasn't very effective. Takes really long to cool room. Once it starts working , then it wasn't too bad.Room was a bit suffocated to start with even after opening big window.. I think along with AC, if owner could have arranged a couple of free standing fans might have made stay more comfortable. I requested the same upon arrival when AC wasn't effective at all, but I was told that it's not possible.Instructions for check in were not given. The accommodation is actually within an apartment building where reception is located at 4th floor. Main door is locked. Reception can be contacted by ringing the bell. I wasn't sure if that would be the case. I was thinking that when we get to the address, reception will be in front of us. No instructions were given on how to contact reception and get main door opened. I called the guest house to find out how to get in to the building, but no one picked up. Fortunately someone was coming out of the building, she open the door for us and told us to go to fourth floor.. Another couple who checked in to this guest house a day after we arrived also struggled in finding the place and were not sure how to get in to the guest house. We then helped them. Lift is too small, two people with one suitcase can barely fit in the lift. Lift and stairs were bit smelly.Towels and beddings were changed third day after we requested to change them. Please note if you prefer to get towels changed every day like me, you may want to request owner to do so, otherwise you will find the same towels in the room, even though you put them on the floor to give indication that you would like them to be changed.

Good
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : The location was perfect and the family that hosted it were really lovely so friendly. It was really spacious and looked like brand new.
  : Unfortunately there were no coffee making facilities and they started cleaning early in the morning before 9am which was really noisy outside the room.

Very Good
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : Location, cleanliness
  : The hosts (especially the lady) argued very loudly at times and it was inappropriate and uncomfortable for us as a family.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple
  : Rooms are in a fully modernised apartment in a what was an old palazzo. Great location for main tourist sites. Room and en suite were spacious and spotlessly clean. Good shower. Owners were helpful.
  : No significant issues. Power points were not numerous or ideally located.

Very Good
Traveller Type: Business Traveler
  : location was great! helpful check in, good air con, amazing shower, comfy bed.
  : dont say there is car parking when it is on street paid car parking. we had to park a street away.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children

Fair
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : Started off really well; we were let in on time and offered cold water bottles, and after a short wait we were given our room keys at 11:45, way ahead of check-in time which was great. We asked if there was an iron, they gave us one and told us we could keep it which was really useful. If that had been the extent of our dealings with the staff until check-out we would have had a really pleasant stay. Room was clean, larger than the pictures suggest, everything worked properly, no issues. Didnt have a kettle in the room, we enquired about that, the owner told us to use hot water from the bathroom tap to make our coffee; incredible advice from an Italian, wonder if he makes his own morning espresso with his bathroom tap?? The owners seem confused about whether they want to be running a hotel, a guest house, serviced apartments, or a hostel, so what you end up with is essentially the worst of all worlds. Needless to say the shared lounge area mentioned in the listing does not exist (which is where we expected a kettle to be), and there are no Do Not Disturb signs provided, so expect to be hassled constantly throughout every day of your stay.
  : The staff ruined this trip. They woke us up shouting to each other in the hallway at 7.30am, they then woke us up again at 9am banging on our door and attempting to enter. They woke us up a third time banging on the door at 10am, then while we were getting up they came banging on the door again. I opened it a crack as we were half-dressed and found the male owner wanting to come in to clean the room. Ive never stayed anywhere where housekeeping are banging on your door at 9 in the morning, let alone THREE TIMES before 11am. I told him we did not want any cleaning throughout our stay and did not want anyone coming into our room. 10 minutes later we had someone banging on the door for a FOURTH time, a girl saying "a man needed to come into our room with a pole for the window." Again I told her no, leave us alone, we do not need a man with a wooden pole, this is ridiculous. Needless to say the following day someone let themselves into our room, solely to make our beds and fold up the (dirty) shower mat and put it in the shower, just for us to take back out again, completely pointless. We had our room for less than 72 hours in all; in that time, the staff entered our room twice and attempted to enter on another four separate occasions. Thats six times during a three-night stay. The hallway was also very noisy, and they were always up and about at the crack of dawn outside our door, so we woke up exhausted every morning. They also failed to book us a taxi to the airport and then left us standing outside for 10 minutes buzzing the doorbell when we came to collect our luggage, causing us to miss the bus to the airport. If the owners hadnt been CONSTANTLY creating problems for us every single day, we would have had a lovely stay.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Solo Traveler
  : Super welcoming staff, so sweet and professional.
  : My bathroom was in a separate room outside my room(it was still private only for me) but that was a little uncomfortable.

Very Good
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : Large, modern clean room and bathroom. Extremely clean. Only a bath towel, no hand towel. Hosts do not speak English so communication was difficult. Excellent location

Pleasant
Traveller Type: Family with Young Children
  : Can't fault location as it was excellent. Short walk to miracle square which includes leaning tower of Pisa, plus right next door to excellent cafe serving fabulous cappuccinos. Also close to plenty restaurants and supermarkets with easy bus route to train station for trains to Florence.The room we had was good size and overall comfortable with ensuite bathroom. Oh and mini fridge was included which is always a treat.
  : The owners manage the place more like a homestay than a guesthouse and on our first day disturbed us twice by knocking and coming into the room to change the aircon setting, dunno how they knew this as we had no complaints.The bathroom was okay but some mould showing in between tiles within shower cubicle. Also some other reviews mentioned this but they do start cleaning quite early and it's noisy but I knew this and it wasn't really a bother as we were up by this time preparing to head out. Lastly their facilities page on Booking stated at time of booking that they offer left luggage. When we requested this at check out they said they could only hold bags till 1pm almost like a favour to us! This made no sense as our flight was much later in the evening so we ended up having to locate a seperate paid left luggage service. I wouldn't have booked the accommodation in hindsight as they are not really offering a left luggage service which we'd factored in when planning our itinerary.