CPT

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of planning a honeymoon trip to Italy (first time) for end of June 2004 for about 2 weeks. At first I was planning to travel from north (venice) to South (Rome), but have changed my mind since I last read earlier post on this. I have done some research and have read through almost the entire board on Italy. However, I was not able to find answers to few of my questions. Can someone pls help... Thanks in advance.

My 1st question is: Is there any significant price differences between booking on your own and through a travel agency like Liberty Travel?

My 2nd question: Liberty had booked me in all 4 stars hotel, Hotel Principe-Venice, Plaza Hotel Luchessi-Florence, Hotel Atlantico- Rome. From reading all the posts on hotels in Italy, I noticed many others non "4 stars" hotels are highly recommeded. What is the wiser way to go since after all it's a honey moon. We went to Paris last fall and stayed at a 3 stars hotel, it was awful, exactly what is described as "typical European Hotels" so I am a bit paranoid now.

Question 3: Which Italy city will you stay the longest if you have to choose for a 14 day trip, or how would you distribute the days? Equally? Or more in Venice, less in Rome? Please advise. thanks

Lastly: We would love to stay some days at Capri (if it fits into our budget), but hotel prices there are just insane, are there any reasonable ($150-$250) hotels at all in Capri??

Thank you.

Hagan

From experience, I can tell you that a 3-star in Paris is no comparison to a 3-star in Italy. More like a 1-star in Italy. You have to spend REALLY big bucks to get a good-sized, really comfortable, well-located room in Paris. I think you'd be happy with most 3-stars in Italy.

bobthenavigator

Travel agents will always push 4 stars or higher--you know why!
You can do well on hotels for an average of 200E--I see no need to spend more, but it is your money.

Lisa2464

Can you tell us which Paris hotels you stayed in that were awful? I have a 3* booked in Paris so I hope it isn't the same one!

MFNYC

You can pretty easily answer your 1st question by pricing airfare for your itinerary on Expedia and pricing the hotels, either by emailing them directly or on a booking site like Venere.com. June '04 may be a bit too far in advance to price at the moment but you can try.

As far as hotel stars, the star system in Europe is different from thatr in the US. I beleive it's more dependent on hotel facilities (having a/c, room service avail, restaurant on premisies, etc.) than quality of room. Personally I usually research hotels based on a budget. I've stayed in 2-4* hotels in Italy and have never been disappointed. Location is also very important to me, but the hotel has to be clean and quiet as well. I'm not familiar with the hotels you mention, but from what I gather the one in Rome is near the Termini station. There are many posts here about that area, some fell parts are 'seedy', others say it's fine. I would look into the location more carefully and consider other rome locations (my preference is near the Pantheon or Navona).

As far as where to spend more time, all are great cities and on a 14 day trip you should be able to expereince the highlights of each of them. Much depends on your interests, each city has so much to offer but also different character. I think Rome would derserve a bit more time than the others, it's the larger of the 3 and has so much to see especially of you've never been. If you aren't lovers of art and art museums, 3 days in Florence is probably enough, otherwise you may want to spend a day or 2 more there. Venice is more the romantic, peaceful place of the 3. It's a much slower pace than the others. A great place to unwind. I would say minimally you would need 5 days Rome and 3 days each in Venice and FLorence. You may consider adding extra days to Florence and taking some day trips into some of the smaller tuscan towns or as you mentioned, spend a couple of days in Capri.

RufusTFirefly

Stars are not awarded for how good a hotel is. They are awarded for a checklist of amenities offered. There are terrible 4-star hotels and wonderful 1-star hotels. However, the 4-star will have more things like a formal lobby, meeting rooms, onsite restaurants and bars, concierge, etc.

However, it's probable that, overall, 4-star hotels will be better in terms of things like service and cleanliness, but it isn't always true--there is no guarantee.

Some of the best accomodations we've ever stayed in were 1-star, 2-star, and even no star places. A couple of the worst were 4 or 5 star.

elaine

Hi
"Stars" are government ratings that include measureable amenities like size of lobby, elevator or no, restaurant on premises or no, number of rooms with private bath, etc.

Stars have nothing to do with decor, ambiance, location, size of rooms, not even level of cleanliness necessarily, though cleanliness should be a given.

I disagree that all 3-star hotels in Italy are so much better than all 3-star places in France. If a person has had better luck in one place than another, that's one thing, but there are plenty of 3-star gems in Paris, even 2-star gems.
One great advantage of the internet for travelers is the ability to share information and get reviews from past customers. If you look for comments on this message board, in the Fodors Hotel rants and raves section, at tripadvisor.com, and so many other message boards, you will get a consensus of opinions on many hotels.
That doesn't mean that occasionally one person doesn't have a bad experience in what is otherwise a great hotel--every hotel, restaurant, shop, etc can make mistakes now and again.

In response to the original question, I think it's fine to do the research on your own and then have a travel agent book it (as long as you're not the one paying the commission). I worry about a comment like "Liberty had booked me..." because it implies to me (I may be wrong) that you didn't have much say in the matter. Don't take any hotel blind--it's not necessary these days.

I have files on your Italian cities; if you'd like to see them, email me at
[email protected]

elaine

I didn't mean to be so redundant about the ratings, I was typing while others were posting

NeedAdvice

Stars are based upon amenites offerred based upon a government sponsored list of services. Most 4 or 5 stars will be good but several 3 stars could be great but rated a 3 because they do not have a restaurant other than breakfast. Rome is wonderful - stay there the longest. Check out the Hotel Barocco, near the Spanish steps - small Italian hotel that is very nice.

Surlok

Do not forget the elevator when comparing 3 to 4 stars!

Many three stars in Europe don't have an elevator, what makes a huge difference for older or handicapped travelers, mostly if it's a room on the third or fourth floor.

MFNYC

I've always had elevators in 3* and in fact, also in 2*. I will say some of the elevators are VERY small and a bit claustrophobic so we ended up using the stairs anyway.

Christina

I think star ratings do have a lot to do with how nice a hotel is, at least 99 pct of the time, perhaps because to me most of what is "nice" about a hotel is amenities and roomsize and quality of furnishings, etc. I take cleanliness as a given regardless of stars and dirty hotels rare in any category.

I don't agree with the comment about 3* French hotels being so much worse than Italian (my impression was actually the opposite, that a 4* Italian hotel might be more equivlane to a 3* Parisian hotel, on average, but I don't have alot of experience with Italian hotels).

I think the problem was likely that you got a hotel booked by a travel agent in Paris, and they booked in an ordinary chain hotel that caters it tours and travel agents, probably. The agent may have gotten a good commission for what you booked. In general, I don't think you pay differently for the same hotel booked on your own as through a travel agency, though. I suspect what your agent books for you may not be a nice or well-located, etc as what you may find yourself from research and reviews, however, as well as location. Your agent may be different, but a lot of agents don't know anything about the location of the hotels they book or know much about the city itself.

I think the best indicator of how well you'll like the hotels is for you to state exactly what 3* hotel in Paris you stayed at and why you thought it was so bad. That will give folks a comparison as to what you want.

RufusTFirefly

Christina--stars are not given for quality of furnishings. Many 3 star hotels are as sumptuous and opulent as any 4 or 5 star hotel, but they might not have a formal lobby or meeting rooms required to be a 4 or 5 star hotel--meaning that no matter how wonderful the hotel is in every other way, it will never be given an additional star or two.

suze

Stars are granted by specific features as already mentioned, elevator, etc. And it varies country to country. Furnishings or cleanliness does not count, nor does friendliness of hotel staff.

I will focus on the questions about using travel services, because am strongly distrustful of travel agents or more specifically package deals.

I do my own research, travael magazines & guidebooks, but mostly post like mad on several travel sites, do internet searches, and then make my own arrangements - flights directly with the airline, and room) directly with the hotels. 25 trips abroad and so far so good. My philosophy behind this is no one cares about how wonderful my vacation turns out more than I DO!!!

Sorry this is just a bit of a rant and maybe or maybe not specifically helpful to CPT.

lyb

CPT,

I've stayed at the Hotel Atlantico in Rome. It was nice and clean and the room size was most definitely equal to American hotels, it was a friend and I, and we had two twin beds. The inside is much nicer than the outside. As far as location, it's about 3 blocks or so from the Termini train station and though we didn't walk to the Coliseum, I know others in our group (I was there with a tour group), who did walk from to the coliseum.

Jeffrey

To reply to question 3: we (married couple, mid-30's) were in Italy for 2 weeks last November and are returning again this November. We did 2 weeks from Venice to Rome. We were 3 days in Venice and Ravenna, 3 in Florence, 3 in Siena and surrounding area, and 5 in Rome. We felt this was about right, although we could have spent twice the time in each place without seeing half of what was there. We personally didn't find Venice to be that interesting - I felt I "had to go" to Venice, but 2 days is enough to get the point. Ravenna's mosaics are magnificent if you can fit it in. If you are going to Tuscany, and are NOT especially into museums, then Florence could be one day as another Tuscan town (this would save you time for Amalfi, which we didn't see last time). If you are into art, however, then 3 days is a minimum. If you have a car, Siena, Assisi and Montepulciano are great. We want to see Lucca, Arezzo, Orvieto and 'just wander' for a week in Tuscany this time. We spent 5 days in Rome and just barely hit 70% of the really big sites, with a little time for just walking around. Depending on how much you want a big city versus relaxing on your honeymoon, you could spend 3 days (minimum) to the entire 2 weeks. There are some excellent walking tours from Scala Reale and others that can really give a good introduction to the city. Hope this helps. We loved Italy - there are no bad ways to spend 2 weeks in Italy, whatever you choose, there will be more to see. You might want to travel less (Venice to Amalfi is a lot) to spend more time where ever you are, but I also felt on my first trip I wanted to see a bit of everything.

RufusTFirefly

Wouldn't 2 days in any city be enough to "get the point"?

Jeffrey, you may or may not like Venice as we all have our prejudices (e.g., I can't stand Florence and Amsterdam)--but you certainly didn't see all the worthwhile sights in Venice in 3 days, and it would be even more impossible in 2 days unless one had super powers.

mclaurie

Something else to keep on mind, in most hotels, particularly 4* which are usually larger, there's a wide variance from room to room. If your budget is say $200/night, you may wind up with the smallest room in the place-or with a less desirable view. There are also 4*s that are in less desirable locations within the city so their rates may be less than a better located 3*. So the question becomes, are you more concerned with amenities & services or with the actual room (for which there are really no standard ratings) and the location of the hotel. I think most Fodorites would prefer the best 3* hotel (perhaps giving up a restaurant in the hotel) to a less desirable room in a 4* that's not well located.

In Venice, the Metropole has gotten good feedback as a 4*. Also the Sant Angelo at sinahotels.com has been highly rated. In fact one possibility to consider is using the same chain of hotels for each stop. You might get a better rate. The sina chain has places in all your cities I believe, as does the Baglioni chain, also 4*, and the Boscolo group. Ofcourse Starwood/Westin has some of the best hotels in each city.