Hotel Panorama, Venice, Italy
Written: May 28 '05 (Updated May 28 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Location, and location only.
Cons: Primitive, dated, tiny old rooms, no amenities, overpriced and disrespect of guests' reservations.
The Bottom Line: Never again! Try the nearby, pleasant BW Hotel Biasutti instead.
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| hfruehauf's Full Review: Hotel Panorama |
My wife and I, a former travel agent, booked the Panorama for 3 nights in early Oct., 2004 after a lengthy Med. cruise. As I'd seen Venice before, I picked it for its quiet, uncrowded location out on the Lido, a residential barrier island, and right at the Lido's vaporetto (and bus) stop, about 15 minutes' ride to Piazza San Marco. Also, it was a bit more reasonable at about $262 night than most other Venetian hotels, all of which looked pretty steep.
I say "booked" rather than "stayed" because, after a long and crowded vaporetto ride of nearly an hour from the train station (with heavy cruise baggage), we walked in in the early evening to find that, despite having fully prepaid our stay weeks earlier, they had unceremoniously bounced us without any notice and resold our room to others. The manager claimed that some fool of a clerk made this "mistake", "had been fired", but I didn't believe a word of it and don't now as I've since learned from other users that the incident was not isolated. They put us up at a nearby competitor, Best Western Hotel/Villa Biasutti, a converted villa which turned out to be considerably nicer, but then dragged us back for the final night.
This 21-room hotel does, indeed, have a good location far from the maddening crowds, plus general cleanliness, but little else to recommend it. Despite having been put into one of its "better" rooms at the front with a view over the lagoon and sea traffic, it was a very small 11x12' with miniscule wardrobe & baggage space, no AC, no window screens, an old canoe of a bed and one of those tiny, added-on shower stalls in which few men over 6' like me can turn around. Room lighting was too dim to read by. An unremarkable contl. b'fast was included, but this hotel's decor scheme ("late-Hitler period") was far out-dated. It offered no restaurant or other amenities. It was a short walk to 4 or 5 local restaurants, which were OK, and about 10 minutes to the ocean beaches.
While staying on the Lido was a good choice, the Panorama was not. Having paid at least double what this simple, "2-star" hotel deserves and gotten very little, only bounced, in return we were not amused.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
hfruehauf
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Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 0 members
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