Hotel Danieli — Hotel in Venice

In summary an extremely disappointing experience for an extremely expensive hotel. The 1 star is for the view and the cool lobby, nothing else met expectations, I have had better service at a holiday inn express then this $1700 a night hotel. We booked a room with a terrace for 4 nights. My negative experience started when I emailed the concierge several times in the week before our stay to discuss booking some tours and never received a response. The afternoon we arrived we called the hotel multiple times to try and arrange transportation to the hotel and we’re just constantly put in a hold loop (for almost 30 minutes) that no one answered or were hung up on (we ended up just getting a taxi ourselves). Check in was fine nothing notable, nothing exceptional. No modern amenities in the room, several things in disrepair. There was a complimentary bottle of wine with 2 glasses which was nice. We decided to go speak to the concierge desk in person to inquire about the tours I never got a response on or about making a dinner reservation. The staff in general just didn’t seem that interested in helping us out. Didn’t hear anything back on our requests in 24 hours so went back to the desk and asked again and finally the head concierge was on duty and was able to book us a tour and a dinner reservation and actually followed up and emailed us the information and was responsive (he was the only saving grace at the otherwise miserable concierge desk). I was disappointed that they could not get reservations at any of our first choice restaurants I did expect them to have a little more pull. This is another problem they could have solved by reaching out with a welcome email when I had booked the room and asking how they could assist me (something that is done at every high end hotel I have every stayed at), they couldn’t even get us a reservation at the hotels own restaurant. The view from the rooftop terrace for breakfast was of course stunning, but the food quality and selection was at the level of a $200 a night hotel. Wait staff was fine. Room cleaning and turndown service was fine. Had them pick up some laundry as we had already been traveling for a week and was told it could be done in a few hours, didn’t receive back until 6PM the next day, leaving me with almost nothing to wear for a day and a half. Had lunch at the terrace restaurant, food was decent but at that price point ($50-$60 entrees) I expect more then decent and portion sizes were tiny. Last straw of our experience was when we booked transportation from the hotel to the airport. Due to a boat regatta closing the waterway it had to be halfway via water taxi and then halfway with a driver. The water taxi dropped us off with our luggage at the train terminal and said our driver would be there in a minute. We waited on the sidewalk in the summer sun and no one came. Called the hotel and got hung up on or put on hold several times as usual trying to reach the concierge. Finally reached someone after about 15 minutes and they said the driver was almost there. We waited 15 more minutes, nothing. Called and again several times to get through, and they said they would have the driver call us directly, 15 minutes later still nothing. After 45 minutes total waiting on the sidewalk in the sun we hailed our own taxi as otherwise we would miss our flight. At the airport now and still never heard back from the concierge or driver. One of the worst hotel experiences I have had. At this price point I expect outstanding and didn’t even receive mediocre, incredibly...

The gentleman who checked us in was wonderful and gave us, as platinum, an amazing balcony, lagoon view upgrade. The room was lovely and the bathroom was amazing, especially the marble counter at the sink... gorgeous. We followed the advice of other platinum members and took the breakfast (on the terrace) as our platinum choice. Great advice! The view, breakfast and ambiance is spectacular. Could just veg up there for hours. It is a quality full breakfast buffet. However, there were a couple of problems with the terrace. 1. The Danelli allows smoking anywhere on the terrace. At the very least, for the comfort of ALL the guests there should be a smoking/non-smoking area... to the left as one goes out the door... a small area since only one person each time we were there was smoking. We don't care if people smoke... just not the 2nd hand smoke in our faces especially as we are trying to enjoy a meal. Unfortunately each morning we had the only smoker on the terrace at the table right next to us... one morning a chain smoker which totally ruined the meal. 2. The other issue on the terrace was the service. (Otherwise our staff rating would have been excellent too) The person we had both days was Flavio... the worst. My spouse had a cappuccino... to get a second cup took forever!... an act of congress if you will. We weren't in a hurry, however, when one finishes a cup of coffee or anything else, the item is cleared or refilled... didn't happen for the longest time. The other servers seemed efficient, but Flavio had an issue. I guess it was because the first morning we requested a table away from the smoker next to us... shouldn't have been a problem as there were several tables. Flavio wanted us inside or around the corner in the back without much of a view... and there were tables with fabulous views available. Even with the smoking & Flavio issue, we totally enjoyed the terrace, but how much nicer would it have been without the smoke in our faces as we were eating breakfast. We didn't go for cocktails and dinner as planned because of the smoke & service issue. For cocktails, we went down to the Gritti Palace and sat on their terrace bar on the Grand Canal for quite awhile one afternoon... it was absolutely lovely, pricey, but lovely and when in Venice will do it again.

We didn't take advantage, but the large lobby area is also a lovely place to have a drink and enjoy the Danelli.

Check out was a little slow, but then a gentleman finally opened up another spot and then all went quickly. Didn't use the concierge as we have been to Venice several times so cannot comment.

All in all we could spend a great deal of our time in the Danelli when in Venice... and we did spend a great deal of time on our veranda. Thank you to all of the staff at the Danelli for providing us with a...

Disorganized. We emailed months in advance to inform of our honeymoon and to request an upgrade. We received notification that we received one, but were informed on arrival that our upgrade was deleted and tried to tell us we received one anyway, when nicer rooms were offered to the actors visiting for the Biennale. Our king sized bed was two twins shoved together. The air conditioner was on its last legs and pushing out barely cool air. We scheduled a taxi to the train station but it was forgotten. The front desk lost our keys and then accused us of losing them. The staff does not speak English very well and often were confused with our requests. They do not read the Marriott Bonvoy messages sent through the app.These are small annoyances, but keep in mind that the price tag is one of the best hotels in Venice. Worst of all, the clientele of the hotel is quite snobby, the staff feeds into it by attending to the most obviously richer customers quite quickly while we were consistently ignored and allowed to be cut in front of (there is an obnoxious policy of leaving your room key at the front desk, and we consistently would arrive back to the hotel and would wait for our key and were allowed to be cut in front of and by more self important people). I went here on my honeymoon, and we were not received warmly, we stayed in many hotels throughout Italy and this was by far the worst with regard to hospitality. The staff was cold and unkind. I would not recommend staying here if you are a gay or queer couple. We were not treated well, and the staff needs implicit bias training. I also would absolutely not recommend staying during the Biennale, it is where the actors stay and the hotel placed them at a much higher priority than other customers. The hotel made dinner reservations for us at tacky touristy restaurants where tourists were packed like sardines. This hotel needs better management. Several staff admitted to me that they felt overworked and unable to meet the needs of the clientele. The disparity between this hotel and others on our honeymoon was stark, we were quite disappointed. We will not be staying here again and would advise you to spend your money elsewhere where you will not be made to feel inferior for some absurd reason. It’s simply not worth the price tag, who wants to pay for a luxury hotel to be made to feel undeserving of hospitality.

Especially if you are looking to have a special time and a special trip, you should know that you will be made to feel the opposite of special. You will wonder perhaps if you were an old rich man accompanied by a thin model in a glittery ball gown if you would be treated...