We stayed at Hotel Serenissima in Venice for 2 nights in June 2014. It was not recommended in Rick Steves Italy 2014, but I saw it briefly mentioned on this site, and it had a pretty good price on Kayak. Turns out it's a Rick Steves tour hotel--one tour left on our first day there, and a second Rick Steves tour arrived on our second day. The hotel is in a FABULOUS location, just a few blocks from Rialton and from St. Mark's Square. We felt OK walking as two women after dark from St. Mark's to the hotel. The front desk was very friendly (especially Michele) and spoke good English. The hotel-provided map + the maps in the Rick Steves guidebook were enough for us to explore all over for two days.
We were in room 152, on the first floor. (The first room we were given smelled like cigarette smoke, and we were lucky they had a second twin-bedded room to change us to. They seemed offended when I wanted to change rooms but did it anyway. I could not have taken staying in the first room. I guess I live a completely non-smoking American life and was shocked how much of Italy reeks of smoke. Ugh.) The rooms have older furniture, but the bed had two sidetables/sheves and there was a nice large wardrobe/closet. The floor of our room was sloped in one direction. The beds are hard, and so are the pillows; the only real negative of the hotel was the beds. The A/C in the room worked and got down to 73-74 at night. (We were afraid to mess with it for fear it would get warmer.) They turn off the electricity to your room when you leave (right there in front of you when you leave your key at the front desk), probably smart in expensive Venice. The room was ensuite, but the shower is on the small side (but not the smallest we had in Italy), and the water temperature was very hard to control (hard to keep it from scalding).
I really enjoyed the breakfast (served from 7-10 am). They had the best scrambled eggs! An older Italian woman is in the kitchen cooking. They also served two kinds of bruschetta, two kinds of sandwiches (ham-and-cheese on mini-croissants--my favorite!), yogurts (frutti di bosco--"wild berry"--is the best!), fruit (whole fruit + watermelon), juice, good coffee, filled croissants (with apricot jam--didn't think I'd like them, but I did), hard-boiled eggs, and cakes/tarts. The wifi worked with good speed, but it took quite a while for it to connect the first time (but after that it was fine). I would love to find a better hotel in an equally great location for the same price in Venice, but I don't know if it's out there. My first visit to Venice was 13 years ago, and I stayed in a dump then; this place was much, much better, and I had a much better time.