Hotel Serenissima

We took the Rick Steves 14 day BOE tour in June, and stayed at this hotel in Venice. While we really liked most of the hotels on the tour, and this one was OK, it was my least favorite of all of the tour hotels, and I don't think I'd book there if I were going back to Venice independently. On the plus side, the rooms were clean and the bathrooms modern, and the hotel did have air conditioning, which is nice if you're planning to travel in the summer. However, the rooms are incredibly small (even by European standards) and the bathrooms even smaller (there is no way that a "plus size" person could have showered in the tiny shower in our room, and there was no tub so that could be an issue if you're above-average in size). There is no elevator and you could be up as high as 4 or 5 floors if I recall correctly, so keep that in mind in terms of luggage. If views are important to you, we didn't find them to be great (we had a view into a rather drab courtyard and our daughters' room was on the other side of the hotel and just looked on to the street). While the rooms are air conditioned, since you are required to turn in your key every time you leave (typical of a lot of smaller European hotels) , they turn off the A/C every time you leave the room, and several times they neglected to turn it back on when we returned, and we had to call and ask them to do it. Of course the upside to the room being so small is that while it was hot and stuffy when we returned, it did cool off fairly quickly. Our daughters, however, had issues with the air conditioning keeping up in their room. We had been to Venice before and had stayed at the Residence Court Grimani, which is only about a block away from this hotel, and it was just so much nicer - large rooms and bathrooms, good A/C, canal views - so perhaps we had set the bar too high.

We stayed in that same hotel last year. It was our Venice hotel for the RS Venice-Florence-Rome tour. We did another RS tour this year, in another part of Europe, that stayed in four hotels. Without a doubt, the Serenissima was our least favorite of the seven RS hotels. The beds were hard as boards. We had a problem with a window latch and a problem with water dripping from the ceiling near the entrance to the bathroom (both were rectified) but they couldn't do anything about the beds. On the other hand, the hotel is right in the middle of everything that you want to see in Venice.

I stayed at the Hotel Serenissima last September 2014 on the 14 Day Best of Europe Hotel. Location of the hotel is excellent, not far at all from St Mark's Basilica. There is no elevator so there are a lot of stairs to climb. Breakfast was very good. Hotel was very nice. My room was a single and I was fine with it and the bed was fine and the bathroom very nice and modern. But if your looking for a wow experience, this may not be it. I did read before I went on the tour that most people complained about the beds being hard and I was concerned, but I was lucky I did not find the bed to be a problem.

I have never stayed here but did hear very good things about Al Ponte Mocenigo Hotel in Venice. You may want to check that out. I know two people who stayed there and loved it. I liked Hotel Serenissima except for all the stairs but it was for only two nights and I was not there very long. You may be able to find a better hotel than Hotel Serenissima but I am sure there are much worse hotels than Hotel Serenissima in Venice. Have a wonderful trip. I loved Venice and hope to go back for at least a week in the future!