Hotel Excelsior Congressi in Bari is a conundrum: in some ways it was very good but in other ways it failed miserably. First the good points. The room was clean, modern, well appointed and quiet. Maid service was fine. Although the hotel had no non-smoking rooms, this one had no smoke odor. One man became our personal assistant, seeing to our coffee in the morning and delivering messages; it seemed he was on duty from early morning until late at night. His service was exceptional. The hotel is conveniently located just across the tracks from the train stations in an area that is slightly quieter than the more lively town section between the train stations and the port. We stayed for eight nights and would consider going back again. (Eight days of identical breakfasts did get a little tiring, however.) But the bad points: The worst incident was one night when we were waiting for a friend to pick us up to go to dinner. We were in the lobby at the appointed 7:00 time but were not surprised when he did not immediately show up (Italian time is less precise than elsewhere). At 7:30 we thought something might have happened to him, so my wife went to the desk to ask if there was a phone with which she could call our friend; she specifically said we were expecting to meet him and were concerned that he hadn't shown up. The clerk at the desk said no, there wasn't a phone; my wife would have to go outside. Instead, she went up to our room and called from there. It seems the friend had called a day earlier to leave a message that our dinner would be postponed one night. But that message never made it to us. So after we concluded something was wrong, we went to eat in the hotel dining room (not recommended). Apparently while we were eating the friend called the hotel and complained strongly to them about their not having passed along his message. The next morning, as I was in the shower, my wife found a note on the desk (among our typical tourist piles of maps, receipts and other papers) from the hotel the night before acknowledging that they hotel staff had failed to deliver the message one day earlier. So, while we were in the hotel restaurant (two of the three people there), the hotel couldn't find us and just slipped the note on the desk. Only by chance did we find that note. (I might point out that the bedspreads are bright red, so leaving the note on the bedspread would have made a note on white paper immediately apparent when we went into the room.) On checking out, the man at the desk claimed we owed for two coffees and three bottles of water, although he couldn't produce any signed receipt showing we ordered or accepted those things (which we hadn't). Rather than argue and risk missing our plane, we paid the small amount. So the service at the hotel--specifically the staff at the front desk--left much to be desired. The other serious flaw concerns smoking. Apparently the conference rooms are non-smoking. Attendees at conferences wanting to smoke go outside. Just outside. Right outside the front door. Often twenty of them. Puffing away. When a conference session takes a break, you might want to wear a gas mask to get through the haze right outside the front door. The hotel could designate a smokers' area at one end of the long covered front porch and away from the front door, perhaps? If you can cope with these kinds of limitations, the Hotel Excelsior Congressi is a reasonable choice for Bari.