Hotel walter&canal — Hotel in Venice

I usually only leave reviews when I'm pleased, not wanting to rate something poorly when it could be someone else's perfect cup of tea. And that's why I'll leave out mention of how the furniture could only ever belong in a production of The Sound of Music where the von Trapps have suddenly become poor. No, I'm leaving a review because this hotel was neither clean nor, more seriously, safe. There were ants all over the room and bathroom, there were crumbs on the nightstand and so the room had obviously not even had a quick spot-check. Besides the walls - stained, crumbling, scratched and marked from years of ignorance - anything white was clean as if we'd only notice dirt on whites. The sparkling toilet and bidet bowls would suggest they were new, but from the loose seat that occasionally dunked you into the toilet and the inside of the bidet's drain (missing plug) you could tell they were aged. The oversized sink wobbled. No care or maintenance has been put into this hotel likely since it was first constructed, as the bathroom suffers with being slanted but unfortunately only having a floor drain on the high end, which has resulted in water damage to the cabinet and door worse than some items dredged from the Titanic. The shower is handheld, in a bathtub too small to use as a bath, and the door to the bathroom opened barely a foot owing to the toilet being directly behind it and the massive sink extending far too far out into the room. Where the yellowed radiator connected to the wall it had rusted all the way through and was loose, and the fuse and other unidentifiable electrical units were so old that it's nigh impossible to believe they could be termed perfectly safe. Where the main light was held to the ceiling was all cracked, including with the wiring exposed. A spring had popped out of the mattress, but even changing sheets didn't seem to reveal this to the staff; this being the mattress on a simple flat metal bed frame closer to a camp bed than much else. The historical gold material design extending through the hotel has not been maintained, either - something you'd imagine they could at least keep on top of - meaning seats are falling apart literally under the cushion, back, at the seams. In reception there's a definitely outmoded lamp designed like a minstrel carrying candles, but most of the fixings for the bulbs are bent and broken, leaving it only for racist decoration with one remaining flickering fire hazard. In the hallways, the air conditioning units were dripping fluid.

And you may be fooled by its claims of being on the Grand Canal when, in fact, most of the main city of Venice (San Marco island) is - and this hotel only has 4 rooms that even look over the canal, the others getting a river at best but most commonly the walls of other buildings. The price is outlandish for the quality, even with Venice being an expensive city. Obviously, with about 5 staff members and such extortionate rates I'm baffled at why they don't seem to have the funds to even buy a duster for the place. For a true comparison, I've stayed at a fancy Marriott with conference rooms right by the White House for less; I've taken Emirates flights multi-city around the world for less - I've actually had an entire holiday to Italy in the past for less, so perhaps you could go to Bologna instead. I'd suggest reading up on transport in the city and finding a small room somewhere that would be a quarter of the price and probably have less insects.

It gets a star back for mostly friendly staff and being close to transport links. Of course, if you've got an idea of transportation in the city then this isn't of massive use to you, and it's hard to imagine a hotel with rude staff getting anywhere. And note that it's also practically at the opposite end of the island to main tourist destinations, and that city tax seems to be higher here than in Rome.

If you are staying there, don't eat at the nearby restaurants on the same side of the canal. The nearest one takes cash only when a small meal for three could easily...

We originally booked this room overlooking the canal in 2019 to go in 2020 - yes it was non refundable but who knew about a world pandemic!! We could not cancel but they allow us to move the dates. ||As this was my husbands 60th birthday Surprise I requested a canal view - not unreasonably I thought||||We got a call the week before today the bed & breakfast was now bed only & we could have a €20 refund for 2 nights for 2 of us or move to another place - we stayed where we had booked as I had done research on the location ||||Trying to find it was a nightmare no signs and the e mail arrived at 2.53pm when I had requested to leave our bags before check in||||We arrived at 2.15pm - check in time was 3pm however “the room was not ready” we could put our bags in storage till 3. We trekked up the 47 steps with our heavy cases as we were going on a cruise after the 2 nights. The room was not been got ready it was a LIE they were just being mean||The view was of roof tops totally the opposite view of the canal||||We were advised there was a safe - yeh however as it wasn’t bolted anywhere you could literally move it therefore we had to take all our documents with us see photo||||We charged our mobile up before we went out no issue coming back in we plugged it exactly the same but this time it blew the electrics in the room! Not good as we wanted to get up early we had to sleep with the curtains open as the reply the next day from the room management was that they do not do wake up calls as they are not a hotel but a guest house!||||Our last morning we went out for breakfast & we intended to leave at 9:15 to 9:30 but as the electrician was working on the fuse board we could not use the electric key pad to access the room.||The housekeeper tried numerous keys but none worked for her the messages sent to management clearly put the task down to Karla to resolve. At 10:10 the electrician came up the 47 steps and used the same keys and got us access.||||Would we stay here again - NO||Would we recommend these rooms - NO ||||we have had much cheaper better rooms with much better customer service in...

Avoid at All Costs – Unsafe, Misrepresented, and Deeply Disappointing

I rarely leave reviews, but I need to warn others about this hotel due to the appalling experience we had.

We booked Hotel Canal through Love Holidays based on the pictures, reviews and advertised amenities: a secure room in a central location with air conditioning, a bar, and a garden. However, upon arrival, we were not even taken to the hotel we booked. Instead, we were redirected to Hotel Walter, an unadvertised, unsafe, and run-down property around the corner.

The room we were given was completely insecure. Three full-length windows, glass was thin like shed windows, couldn’t lock or even close properly, leaving us feeling incredibly unsafe especially as two women travelling alone. We had to wedge chairs against the windows just to sleep.

The tap water ran brown, before clearing, making it unusable for even brushing our teeth. We had to buy bottled water for basic hygiene. The air conditioning was broken and clearly hadn’t worked in a long time, yet the hotel provided fans as if this were an acceptable substitute. The extractor fan in the bathroom didn’t work, resulting in damp and a horrible smell. There were also broken sockets in the room, which were dangerous.

The advertised bar and garden did not exist, both key reasons we chose this hotel in the first place.

After repeated complaints to hotel, and time soent on love holidays customer service, we were finally moved to Hotel Canal on our last night. That room was closer to what we’d paid for, but by then, two-thirds of our stay had already been ruined. We lost precious time of our short break trying to resolve these issues instead of enjoying our holiday.

This entire experience felt like a bait-and-switch, and I would absolutely not recommend this hotel to anyone. It’s misleading, unsafe, and unworthy of the price we paid. Please think twice before booking—there are far better and more honest options available.

Love holidays spoke to to hotel and we did end up getting a refund of our hotel cost, after...