JW MARRIOTT VENICE RESORT & SPA

This place is the bees knees. If you have the money, definitely go here

If you plan on spending time in Venice, do not book this hotel. This hotel is for people that want to just stay AT the hotel and enjoy the expensive luxury. To get to the hotel is quite the maze through Venice just to get to the point where the hotel’s free water taxi takes you to the island where it’s located (which I had to Google to learn how to get to the hotel). Our check in experience was hectic as the one poor guy that was tagging each travelers luggage insisted on having our luggage brought to the room. During this process, the phone kept ringing and he was the only one there to answer. It was raining and we were sopping wet from arrival and just wanted to have a shower and change into new and dry clothes. However, it’s been an hour since check in and we are still waiting for our luggage. Stay in Venice where you will be close to the things you’ll want to do and see.

Set your expectations to expensive. You are on an island with just a shuttle boat or taxi boat to get you of there. As an example: we wanted some ice to our room. We could not pick that up our selves, they had to send 2 guys from room service and charged us 28 euros. It’s a really nice looking place but the fact that they milk you for money at every turn is very of putting. Another example: they charged us 200 euros extra per day at checkin as a “if we break something fee”. They fully expect you to spend that on their island, and you will. They pump the reception full of perfume so you almost faint. Very inflexible, we wanted to eat out side to watch the sun set on the roof terrace. That was not allowed by the restaurant manager. The cleaner also threw away some clothes for us.

Hour checked in. And room service showed up while we were still in the room. Not happy at All.

Venice is a complicated place to visit. But staying at the JW Marriot Venice makes it more difficult. So we booked thinking it was close to Venice, it’s not. You arrive by shuttle, we paid 100€ to get there. Once we got there we realized that you need a shuttle to go to Venice. It comes out every 30min. So you’re dependent on it schedule: The feel is nothing like a Venetian feel. It’s modern and you feel like a fancy Alcatraz. People are nice, but it doesn’t make sense to pay so much money to be 20 min away by boat. Might as well stay in the Veneto region. The first day, we were stranded and people waited for over 3 hours just to get back. We go frustrated and had to pay 100€ to get back in a private taxi. The rooms are ok, a bit old the shower is a handle, we paid over $€1200 a night which seemed an excessive price for what it is. I would not pay more than $200 and not even that because it’s like being in a cruise ship . We spend the night frozen, when we called the technician he came and told us it didn't work. We called the receptionist and she told us that’s how they operate at this time, no HEATING. What?? It’s been a very sad experience spending all this $$ and time and effort to come to Venice and getting this. You loose most of your day going back and forth in the shuttle, when you could be watching something historical or just sitting there watching the beautiful scenery at the plaza. We have a high status’s with Marriot and Amex and they couldn’t event get. room with a king size, when we asked for our usual upgrade they said if we wanted a king size bed we needed to downgrade.. Decoration was done like in the 90s. Place to us was not worth it, nor the price.
Those are my thoughts.