Sina Centurion Palace

We booked this hotel because it was away from the busy side of the canal. You had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the bridge to walk over to the busy side. If you want to be in the middle of the shops and crowd immediately then this hotel is not for you. The service and staff were good. We had breakfast and lunch in the hotel. Food was fine but expensive. The restaurant charged 9 Euros for a bottle of water which seemed unusual. I went through all the TV channels and the only English speaking TV channel was BBC. The hotel offered a complimentary tour to a shop in Murano island. We took the tour and we soon found out it was a sales pitch tour for the glass shop. We purchases a few small glass items from the shop and later we saw similar items much much cheaper in city center shops. We had a horrible experience taking the water bus to the hotel once we got to Venice. We got fined 118 Euros because our vaporetto bus ticket was not activated. We talked to three water bus staff to find the correct water bus and no one told us we need to activate the tickets after purchase. Once we got on the water bus to get to the hotel, 4 vaporato workers surrounded us, checked our tickets and then asked us to pay the fine. The way they surrounded us and talked to us was very scary. These workers only went after the people with suite cases because they knew exactly new tourist are not aware of this law. The local authorities think they are smart and they legally scam tourist and generate more revenue. However we will never go back to Venice and I think many other people feel the same after researching the web.

My husband whisked me off here as a treat for my birthday and it was the perfect location. We had the hotel arrange a private water transfer to the hotel and that is an experience to remember - highly recommend. The hotel has a beautiful balcony for drinks overlooking the canal and even in March we had the pleasure of sitting out with a cocktail in the winter sunshine. We chose to walk everywhere rather than get water taxis and loved the freedom. We did Piazza San Marco in about 20/25 mins / cocktails at Florian’s is also a must do! We are already talking about coming back - Venice is stunning - and I’d happily stay at the Sina Centurion again.

The hotel is situated only one waterbus stop across from St Marks Square, and only takes 4 minutes to walk from the hotel to the nearest stop. We used a 3 day travel pass, which is ideal to explore Venice! The staff were faultless! They were very welcoming and knowledgeable, thank you to ALL of you! Some hotel rooms have a small balcony with spectacular views of the canal.