Hotel Ca' dei Conti

I was located a little walk away from the main reception. Good position between the Rialto bridge and St Marks square though. Both walkable within a 10 minute walk. Good room and facilities. Lacking tea and coffee making facilities though which is a must for a weary traveller. Clean room and in good condition with a good running hot shower. Lights in the room were on sensors that kept going off when I moved in bed so had to remove the card key from the socket to kill the lights. Then when the neighbours came back and turned the bed side light on it was turning my lamp on and off. Clearly been wired up incorrectly. Breakfast was the let down. Poor quality items. Even the croissants were terrible. Seemed that everything was really cheap quality.

We spent six nights in this hotel as part of an arts package tour. The location is very good - and then things go downhill. I read all the mixed reviews prior to going, so alarm bells went off when they assigned us a room across from the main hotel, which involved up and down steps on a bridge just to get to meet up with the group, to go to breakfast, and it was a vast, depressing room that they called a “suite”. I think they used that term because there were a few things along one wall that suggested the tiniest of kitchens. But the bathroom was so far away, the closet the same, and the only windows looked out onto a gravelly piece of land full of weeds and junk. It was also very dimly lit and though it had two large beds, and lots of square footage, there was only one uncomfortable straight chair to sit in. Out in the hallway there was an even dimmer area with a sofa and one chair. It also took three different keys to unlock all the doors to get into this place. We were moved the next day to another room, but still somewhat in an annex. This one however was adjacent to the main entrance and you just had to wend your way back through what may have once been a courtyard of some sort to get to the lift on that side. Then repeat the whole process: lift, down to the courtyard connection to another lift to get to breakfast. A more comfortable room, but so dimly lit that you couldn’t read anything after dark. I’ve never been in such a dark room - what about a little wattage in those bulb sockets? So depressing! The bathroom was small, with virtually no surface to put even a toothbrush on. The shower was just part of the room, no lip or anything, just a flimsy curtain around this space that didn’t reach to the floor. The floor wasn’t canted to drain the water away so you had to mop it up with three or four bath towels just to create some sort of barrier and keep the water from going all over the entire small bathroom. It had one decent light bulb, but that cast a total shadow over the sink and small mirror if you tried to put on any makeup. The breakfast was so-so - I had been warned by previous clients that the scrambled eggs were pretty bad, but I tried them and they were OK. But only that once : the other mornings when I tried them they were calcified and inedible. They had two cheeses, the same two, every morning, pretty dried out and unappetizing. The juices were obviously timed. The breads were OK but nothing more. So I resorted to cereals, which are hard to ruin. The coffee was very weak, more like brown water, and after a few attempts I gave up and had tea - at least, one can control a tea bag! The staff, except for one particular man, were cordial and friendly. However - our room was stifling hot and they couldn’t get the temperature down. Every morning we asked, and every day they said they’d fixed it, but it never came down from about 25-27 C. Not ideal for sleeping. We were asked not to open the windows because the mosquitos would come in. There is a large enough lobby area, but only four seats or so. In a group where there are many waiting to gather for an outing this was very hard on some of the more elderly participants. How hard would it be to add another chair or sofa? There’s plenty of room. Our tour was brilliantly organized, with superb lecturers, a congenial group and we loved seeing more of Venice. We will return but not to this hotel.

My rating is based on the standard of the room we stayed in - which was 103. I have attached photographs that clearly demonstrate just how badly in need of repair / redecoration the room we stayed in was. The one positive was that the bed was very comfortable & the bed linen & towels were impeccable. Generally speaking - the entire hotel is also in need of some attention / upgrading too. The carpet on the stairs leading up to the dining room was secured by stair rods & sections on the landing were loose in places presenting what could be a significant trip hazard. There is a bar area and roof terrace advertised; the “bar” was never advertised as open. Both the bar & the terrace area are again very tatty / unwelcoming. When I asked if the bar was ever open, the reply given was with a shrug “ tell me what you want and someone can bring it for you “ We met our friends for pre-dinner drinks in their hotel - 2 mins walk away & that was completely the opposite in every respect. We felt we certainly drew the short straw with our booking compared to their hotel in every respect. We probably didn’t read the small print somewhere that told us there’s a per person nightly tax - so that was a bit of a shock when we had to pay about £27 for 2 of us for 3 nights stay. That - plus £3 for 2 bottles of water ! As I said to the receptionist when we paid - it’s probably the only hotel I’ve stayed in that doesn’t offer guests complimenting bottles of water. Venice isn’t cheap - this hotel definitely needs to up its game - I truly cannot recommend it.