Casa Dolce Venezia — Hotel in Venice

After a last minute change in travel plans, I reserved a room at Casa Dolce just one week before our trip to Venice for €178 per night. Not cheap, but quite good considering the central location. The staff member who I communicated with before our arrival and who also checked us in and brought us to the room was very friendly. Unfortunately, these were the only positive things about our stay.

We had to check in at Hotel San Luca, which is supposed to be just a 5 minute walk away, but if you have suitcases and/or young children, it's more like 10 minutes, since you have to go up and down steps to get over the canals, as well as dodge all the people crowding the narrow streets. Still, it would have been worth the trouble if the room was decent.

When we finally reached Casa Dolce, we were impressed by the lovely building interior. We were directed to the stairwell leading up to our room; I immediately noticed a sickly sweet chemical smell, presumably from cleaning products or air fresheners. At first glance, our triple room was quite impressive with its huge chandelier and majestic decor. But after settling in, I began to notice some disturbing things. For example, the fancy embroidered bedspreads had quite a few stains, giving the impression that they were not laundered. There were some streaks of red on the wall by the bed. ("Blood?!? No, it can't be, it must be make-up."😳😟) And not one but two air fresheners in the bathroom 🤔. Then, while showering, I looked up and noticed that there was about a square foot of black mold spots on the wall--not surprising, given there was no exhaust fan in the bathroom and the general humidity of the city. However, we were only staying two nights, so I figured we'd survive.

Unfortunately, two days after leaving Casa Dolce, I noticed that numerous bug bites in linear/cluster patterns had appeared on the backs of both of my legs. Most people would probably assume they were just mosquito bites, but I had been wearing linen pants during the majority of our trip (except in bed, when my legs were bare). Also, I regret to say that I am all too familiar with this pattern of bites as I experienced them once many years ago. Suddenly, the sickly chemically-masked smell and the blood on the walls made sense (not to mention another review noting dead bugs squished on the wall). THE ROOM HAD BEEN INFESTED WITH BED BUGS!!! The bites can take a few days to appear and not everyone reacts to them, which explains why my daughters didn't have the same bites. What a nightmare!!! I am just glad I noticed it before the end of our trip so we could avoid bringing home a terrible and...

Our room had mold in it. My wife is pregnant so this is a concern. Brought it to the attention of Hotel Bella Venezia (managing hotel) and staff (Federico) laughed at us claiming this is not a big deal and it is our problem to figure out. Runga (reception) claimed they were unaware of the mold as no guests had told them. It is quite obvious and something any staff should notice upon cleaning the room. Safe provided was already locked upon arrival. Runga also made promises to compensate us for the conditions that she was unable to keep after speaking with her manager. Harley (night reception) was able to help us process our refund but was sarcastic and rude throughout the process.

Guests staying at Hotel Bella Venezia were nicer than the staff. We had multiple families ask if they could help us while the staff ignored us. One family even prayed for us while Federico and Harley laughed and chatted to themselves in Italian. Never met such unprofessional staff at a “4 star” hotel.

We had to find 4 nights at the last second and spend way more than we planned. 0/10 would recommend Casa Dolce or Hotel...

I have never written a bad review but this was unbelievable. The only good thing about it was the Location. However, there was no sign and was VERY difficult to find, even after we had checked in and left to explore Venice. When asking people that lived/worked within the area for directions, they had no idea either.||The woman that let us in was very rude and condescending. The room was advertised as having Air conditioning but there was no remote in the room and the a/c was situated about 9' off the floor so there was no way to manually turn it on. When we called her about it she just said to open the window, which then resulted in being invaded by mosquitoes. I truly thought they had converted their storage room into a 'bedroom'. The shower was so slow in draining I was afraid it was going to run over. Also there is no one on the site to deal with check ins which proved to be an issue as well.||The pictures they had up on their website did NOT in ANY way resemble the hole they put us up into for an exorbitant price - the Most we have paid for a...