Hyatt Centric Murano Venice — Hotel in Venice

The Hyatt Centric Venice Murano is a beautiful property that reflects its unique location on the glassmaking island of Murano. The hotel is modern, clean, and features some truly stunning glass artwork harkening back to its days as a glass factory. ||The front desk staff here is very friendly and they were very helpful with directions and recommendations. We especially loved meeting Chris, our hostess/server at Osteriva restaurant, where we had two excellent meals. The restaurant is gorgeous and the food is sublime. We were not as impressed with the Riva Longa Cafe where we had the worst dinner of our trip. We were similarly not impressed with the housekeeping department. We only asked to have our room cleaned one day of our stay despite this being a full service hotel and requested this from the front desk twice that morning, only to come home to a dirty room that no one had touched. They were quick to deliver essentials we needed, but it was still very disappointing as the hotel is not cheap and a corresponding level of service is expected. ||The location has its pluses and minuses. Having a water bus dock right in front of our hotel was super convenient but the boat routes that service the island are a bit confusing as not every boat stops there and service ends on the 3 line by 6:23pm. For someone who can walk 10 minutes this is not a big deal, but there are bridges with steps that make this more challenging for wheelchair users as we can't as easily hop between stops. Other than that, the area of the island is easily walkable and many shops and restaurants are accessible. We loved that the glass museum and a coop supermarket were both around the corner. Getting to Venice attractions and Burano did involve a commute that ranged from 30-90 minutes, but if you can navigate steps, that could be less as we had to use routes that avoided staired bridges on the main island. Che Bateo is generally a useful app for figuring out boat routes, but it did give me incorrect directions on what dock to use once so check the map at each stop before getting on to make sure you get the correct direction for the 4.1 back to the hotel. ||As I use a wheelchair, the rest of this review is specific to accessibility for people with disabilities.||We stayed in a wheelchair accessible standard twin room. From what I was able to gather from the Hyatt site, the only options for a wheelchair user are a standard twin room and a premium suite that only has one king bed without the possibility of a rollaway. The standard rooms are TINY and it was tight even with my small travel chair. I was surprised that it was the smallest of the accessible rooms I stayed in during my trip to Europe. While I appreciated easily being able to reach the bed and bathroom, some elements of the room clearly were not designed well for wheelchair users and assumed that a companion would be around to help. Though that was the case for this stay, I also travel alone and know many disabled people who do. Things like the coffee maker and hangers for clothes are impossible to access from a wheelchair because they are too high up. The view was of a wall, which is kinda typical for accessible accommodations so I pretty much expect it. I was happy to find that the window easily opened from a seated position, providing much needed fresh air that I could access myself. ||The bathroom was a good size for me to easily get around in, but I found the grab bar placement to be a bit low. Unlike other European hotels, there is only one full length fold down grab bar and a tiny mini bar on the short wall shared with the shower. This is a bizarre design choice as there was enough space to install a fold up bar on the other side too, which would have provided more stability, especially for me as one side is weaker than the other. There is also a bidet hose next to the toilet but it didn't work. ||The shower had good non slip flooring that I really appreciated and a generous amount of grab bars that I found helpful. There was no built in seat, and the stool provided in the room is a nice visual design concept but not stable enough for a disabled person to use for transfers. The front desk guy quickly problem solved and gave me a more stable chair with a back to sit on, which was much appreciated. There is a rack due the shampoo and conditioner bottles, but it's far from the shower controls, which makes it unusable from a seated position. These things may seem minor but wheelchair users should be considered and consulted in every design aspect of an adapted room, and that clearly wasn't the case here. ||The hotel has its own private boat for inexpensive airport shuttle transfers, which is convenient.,.as long as you're not disabled. When I went to book it, I saw a long rider saying it's not accessible and that the hotel will not provide any alternative, which is a bit disappointing because I thought the new EU accessibility laws would provide equality but I guess Hyatt feels this doesn't apply to them, despite being an American chain and having enough resources to shoulder the cost of accommodating with a taxi service that has a wheelchair lift like they do when faced with this issue in other markets with similar anti-discrimination laws (aka the ADA). While I hope that the hotel ends this discriminatory practice, I didn't find the public boat transfer too difficult as the water buses and Alilaguna all have ramps and crew that were great about helping me on and off, as well as assisting with luggage (my main concern as my companion is elderly with a non visible disability). It does require making a transfer at Murano Colonna though as the public airport boat does not stop at the hotel. The bridge to Colonna is step-free but it is a bumpy 15 minute walk, not the easiest...

A good 3* hotel but most certainly no more than that as it lacks the finer details one would normally expect of a 4* establishment.

We stayed in a duplex room, which was so warm in early February that we had to sleep with both the skylight windows and the door to the balcony open despite the room temperature being set to Lo.  We suspect the system was not working as we could hear no fan noise but then you are not given fan controls, so maybe the rooms are not air conditioned.

The bed was very comfortable despite the various hairs both on and in the bed when we first arrived.  Very small slippers are provided (size 8 maximum) but robes are not, which was a surprise.  Complimentary water was present in the room when we arrived but not replaced during our stay.

The duplex rooms are equipped with 2 x Samsung wide-screen TV's with SKY TV and we were very pleased to see the option to select your language but then extremely disappointed to see just 1 x English channel (SKY News) in a modern international 4* hotel.

Selecting the language simply changes the language of the menu display but not the content, which was exclusively Italian.  This is the first international brand hotel we have frequented in years that does not offer at least several channels in multiple languages.  You have been warned, so bring your own content as you can easily connect to the TV via hdmi.

The reason we were disappointed with the lack of non-Italian channels is the duplex (loft) rooms have a comfortable seating area with sofa, which we envisaged would be very useful as Murano is like a ghost town out of season after 6pm and Venice is not a late night kind of city. As a result we found ourselves back at the hotel reasonably early in comparison to the many weekend breaks we have taken before.  This would normally be the perfect opportunity in most hotels to put your feet up after a long day on foot but not at The La Gare where your size 12 feet are squashed into your size 8 slippers whilst you luxuriate in the imaginary robes as you enjoy 40 odd channels of Italian SKY TV.

Breakfast is served in a very small and extremely warm room, with tables placed very close together and the heating turned up high.  It was very noisy and felt very hectic, which is not how most want to start the day whilst on holiday.

The food was of the continental variety and the selection was very limited with a small choice of cold meats and cheese, cold fritatta, some cucumber and tomatoes plus a few cereals.  Sadly no smoked salmon or fish for those who don't eat meat and even less for vegetarians as even the fritatta had meat in it.

Hot options consisted of bacon and scrambled eggs. Juices were extremely limited and seemed to only consist of the orange variety, including one that tasted like orange squash.  I don't drink coffee but my partner remarked that it was extremely poor for an Italian hotel but it would probably make a great drain cleaner.  The pastry selection was the highlight and included some cakes and fruit tarts beyond the usual items, so it's not all negative.

One big negative though is the hotel's boat, which does not operate before 09:00, so if you have an early morning flight you are on your own. Your options are either a €120 private taxi boat (it is only a 25 min journey, so I guess they just make the prices up as they go along but then Venice is hideously expensive) or the Alilaguna Ferry from Murano Colonna. The latter unfortunately only runs every hour but it is only €8.00. We had to take a ferry just after 05:00 for our 08:25 flight, despite the close proximity of the airport.

As mentioned at the start of my review, this is a good 3* hotel but most definitely...

Hyatt Globalist experience: The Negatives:

1. Roll of the Dice for an upgrade.
2. For all the Hyatt properties that we stayed, we got free breakfasts for all three of us (as a family) even with two rooms on a couple occasions but not at this Hyatt Centric Murano property, dumb made up policy!!!
3. (Late June 2024) Breakfast buffet price 24 Euro (about $26 US) per person - no pancake, no waffle, bacon not fully cooked & drowned in grease, room temp yogurt, no cook to order egg or omelette - very disappointed.
4. Hit or Miss rooms with working AC during the hot summer weather. Our son’s room had a broken AC just like in other reviews reference broken AC rooms. Reported to front desk the next morning. Got a lie that his room “was not set at a minimum temperature”. Yes, same curly haired desk lady. She also said a maintenance tech will come and check. Not holding my breath. Next day, AC not fixed. Day after, not fixed. We checked out a day early which we already pre-paid.
5. No communication from the desk staff when rooms readied. Had to keep checking, even during the first stay. The second room was ready well after 3 pm check-in.
6. No swimming pool.
7. No ice machine.
8. Waiting areas in the lobby for rooms to be readied were very warm during hot days.
9. Location - after 4 pm - limited restaurant choices. Half of the restaurants and shops closed early. Getting around to tourist areas like the beaches, Venice, the main land will require some logistics with the public boats/water shuttles. Private water taxi is very very pricey.
10. Be warn - There is NO Hyatt complimentary water taxi “before 9:00 am” to the airport. You will have to take a private water taxi, 150 Euros and Public water transportation does not start until 8:00 am.

The Positives:

1. This property offers complimentary prescheduled water taxi to and from the Venice airport “only” at 9:00 am and later.
2. Convenience bag checks when arrive early and room not yet ready.
3. The main restaurant staff were curteous and friendly.
4. Location - Not overly crowded. Not much going on, peaceful and relatively quiet even on weekend, some nice local eateries.

Summary: I’m sure the property manager will respond with apologies and excuses. These negatives have been mentioned in other comments and posts. The negatives listed can be quickly remedied with minimum costs and will greatly enhanced this Hyatt Centric location experience. Yes, we rolled the dice - stayed over night for a cruise and lucked out, got an upgrade and all three of us got complimentary breakfast, suite room with working AC as expected from Hyatt Globalist Program and Hyatt Centric name. We waited for 2-3 hours in the “very warm” lobby for room. Came back from the cruise, rolled the dice again and lost. We were expecting the same or at least a 4 Stars experience on the second visit. Nope, got a 2 Stars, not something we expected from the Hyatt Centric name. We were very very tempted to book another hotel but decided to rough it out. No upgrade, Paid for two rooms, with one room had broken AC. Standard room are small like a motel rooms. Only two comp breakfast, had to pay for my son breakfast, not sure why, especially limit is for 2 adults and 2 children. Don’t expect standard American breakfast foods like crispy bacon ‘not’ drowned in grease, omelette, pancake, waffle, ham, apple juice, etc… 2 Stars….Subpar level of services, not very accommodating and amenities for The Hyatt Centric. I would not revisit again or recommend this Hyatt Centric. If you like risks, then...