The Columbus is a realtively cheap (for Monaco) boutique-style hotel. It's located a little way from the main tourist attractions of Casino Square, but is very convenient for the heliport.

Although the rooms are modern, well equipped and a decent size, the decor is showing it's age - the bathroom in particular was a little shabby.

The hotel has a fantastic cocktail bar, and a fairly good restaurant. Staff spoke excellent English, as you'd expect in Monaco, but were a little too brusque; customer service wasn't as good as you'd expect for a boutique hotel in London, for example.

We stayed at the hotel for 3 nights in July with Cresta including a one way helicopter transfers, which was fab.

The hotel is very stylish inside, and the bedrooms were lovely - spacious with large balconys. The only aspect that let the hotel down was the staff. We found all the reception staff to be rude, unhelpful, and rather snobby. We had lots of issues but as an example we had to ask 3 times for our room to be made up as a double rather than a twin. Even the staff at breakfast were unfriendly and rude.

We felt that the location was great - near to fontville marina and its restaurants. The public transport was great -buses and trains - cheap efficient and clean. The swimming pool although small was fine.

Obviously the Colmbus provides good value but the attitude of the staff really put us off.

The Hotel Columbus is just fab & a very cool place to stop - however.. just a little bit tired , there were marks all over our junior suite, which in most other ways was very good. Lighting was dodgy both in the bathroom & bedroom for doing makeup, this is a common problem in a lot of hotels ( designed by men ? ) However, at the Columbus most was forgiven by the great staff ! The food was of a really high standard, I had a superb strawberry & green pepper risotto for lunch one day !
We discovered a fantastic place to eat at the back of the hotel in the port called ' Beefbar ' - full of the ' Beautiful People ' valet parking etc , serving just what it says on the tin - beef . Wow !

After reading the reviews we were very much looking forward to our stay at the Coumbus, but were left unimpressed by the hotel and its staff and would not recommend it for the following reasons:

We found the reception staff very poor as we were left waiting for a long time at the desk trying to check in, whilst 3 reception staff appeared to winge about guests. On getting attention they were then continally interrupted by telephone calls.

The hotel is not walking distance from the main attractions of the palace or monte-carlo and you need to take a taxi or bus.

We asked for a taxi on the Sunday morning and after waiting for 30mins, when another couple then asked for a taxi we were advised that we should take the bus as there wasnt any taxis.... we wished that advice had been given first off! as getting the bus turned out to be very easy (the public transport is excellent).

We had dinner at the hotel and the food was nice enough but did not warrant the price...we ate at Zebra Square the following day and got a much better meal for less money

Also per a previous review, the pool is ok, but be warned its close to the heliport and is part of a shared complex

On the pro side the Coumbus is contemporary, clean and comfortable.

....we also did have a lovely time in Monaco and on looking around the Hermitage hotel think we will try that next time.