Monaco and Grand Canal

"As mentioned the location is terrific. The water taxi and gondola stops right in front of the hotel, it’s a long and narrow hotel with some rooms on the grand Canal. The rooms are really cute and well appointed. The lobby is above average. It’s definitely a uniquely Venetian experience. The breakfast is more than adequate but not stellar. They only have 18 odd tables and they are 91+ rooms in the hotel so there are several situations where you will witness entitled guests and harassed hotel staff shouting at each other for a table with a perfect view which is always a damper on the entire mood in the breakfast area. But I think it’s more than that, the front desk staff and the concierge are just not welcoming in the way that one is used to if you travel to a lot of good hotels worldwide. Not the ideal guest facing staff for the hospitality business, but even further than that, if they had been my employees, I would have fired them for being too fragile to meaningfully contribute to the business. That points to a more systemic problem: either with the management or with the lack of good staff in Venice. I hate to compare it to a much better competitor hotel in Venice but we stayed at the Danieli a few years ago and the visit was just amazing from the first smile as you entered to the warm invitation to return as we left. Unfortunately, the Danieli is temporarily closed for a full renovation so we had to book this as a second choice, hoping for a somewhat comparable level of service and elegance, but it was not meant to be. In short, this is not the refined hotel experience that we would return to."

"A marvelous hotel experience, from the location, to the staff, to the amenities. I cannot recommend this hotel highly enough."

"A beautiful hotel in the most perfect location with the friendliest most attentive staff, what could be better? The Monaco Grand Canal is 30 seconds from the San Marco water bus stop, about 3 minutes from Sam Marco and surrounded by the best boutiques. Immediately adjacent to the famous Harry's Bar (where they invented the Bellini) and facing the Grand Canal, it's perfect. Breakfast (buffet) lovely but dinner was superb! Gianni looked after us beautifully (I was joined by my son) moving seamlessly between fluent English and French, a real experience, and the Murano glass tumblers were a beautiful touch. I travel a lot (regularly bi-monthly) and attention to detail is vital in a good hotel. You cannot beat looking out over breakfast at the Grand Canal on a sunny morning. Bravo, I'll most certainly be back."