I reserved a Junior Suite with Canal View for 220 euro per night in March. Has anyone stayed there and is this a good deal ?

I am going to stick my neck out here and say that I think it is ridiculous to spend that kind of money on any hotel room, regardless of the view. My god, what do you really want out of a hotel room besides being clean, safe, and comfortable? In a place like Venice you are crazy to spend a minute more in your room that you NEED to. There are plenty of excellent places to stay in Venice for a lot less. Get out of the room to see the canals, ride a gondola, take a vaporetto, walk along the canals. Is it just a status thing to claim the right to pay an exhorbitant rate for a room?????

Your opinion on "expensive" hotel rooms was not solicited!! Maybe it's his honeymoon, maybe he likes luxury sheets & towels, maybe he CAN'T walk around...etc. etc. I would LOVE to stay in that kind of room all the time if I could. Get used to the fact that it's different strokes for different folks, and not EVERYONE is a budget traveler!

I think that is a pretty good deal for a room with a view of the canal. Yes, you'll be out of your hotel alot but it might be cold in March and having a nice view while in your room is something special in Venice.<BR><BR>We stayed at the place next door, the 3 star Hotel Marconi, and I didn't think it was really worth recommending except their breakfast was great (paid in lire the equivalent of $360 per night for a quad room with no view), but the location was terrific. Maybe I didn't get a great deal, but that was Easter Weekend and prices were sky high in Venice. <BR><BR>Highly recommend the Trattoria alla Madonna, right around the corner from your hotel.

Fred, we stayed in a delux canal view room at the Rialto for Carnivale last year and it was great. At the time it was being renovated, so I am sure they are finished now. We had four floor to ceiling windows, two on the canal, two on the side walkway. It was wonderful, it is nice to sit at the chairs at the windows with the tiny balcony and watch the Grand Canal. We do come back to the room to rest once in a while and also in the evening before dinner to change and regroup. Even late at night to sit with a glass of prosecco and look out your window is a wonderful interlude.

the rialto is a good hotel with good location...i think your price is reasonable but you should try to get the suite in the top floors..that way the crowd and vaporetto noise wouldn't be too bad...<BR><BR>added note: you should ask the concierage if they still have the free boat ride to murano; if they do, take advantage of it...they run every 20 mins up to 10am

With the location of Hotel Rialto and<BR>view on the gran canal assured, a junior suite/2 persons for 220.- euro, I am tempted to take it. Instead, me and my friend have 2 nites at Pensione Accademia and 2 nites at Monaco & Gran Canal from 29 Nov.to 03 Dec, 178.- euro per nite for both hotels. (I will post detail about this under "Accademia and Monaco & Gran Canal in Venice.Pls check if you have time and comment.)<BR><BR>Please post your report about your room at Rialto after your trip.I might like to consider staying there on my yet another trip to Venice. Thank you.<BR>

We are sitting IN that wonderful room with the balcony in the Hotel Rialto, watching gondoliers out the window when we can pull our eyes off the Rialto bridge, and feeling MIGHTY glad we splurged. Don' tknow that you need a long time here, but for $350 a night, if you can afford it, it is FABULOUS.<BR><BR>

We have stayed at Hotel Rialto twice. The first time we had room #408. They had guaranteed us a room with a balcony on the canal and it had one. It was a nice room, but not a junior suite. We loved the room and spent every evening sitting on our balcony doing drinks and watching the sunset, the canal traffic, and the crowds. It was magical. A couple of years later we returned with friends and requested two similar rooms. When we arrived they gave us the same room, plus room # 402, which is the one I suspect they call the Junior Suite. It is huge with a full seating area at the balcony end and a huge balcony right above the center entrance of the hotel. All four of us could enjoy the balcony.<BR>It wasn't so much the room I cared about, but rather those balconies. Unfortunately the hotel only has a couple of balcony rooms, but it is one of the few hotels that would guarantee one -- most usually said "depending upon availability on arrival", which really annoys me.

Ethel, I have no idea what makes you the queen of telling other people how to spend their money.<BR>At home I love my bedroom. I always spend money to have fresh flowers. I have very, very expensive bed linens. My bedroom is beautifully furnished. Many think it is a waste, since it is only for me.<BR>But when I travel, why should I be that much less comfortable than when I am at home? I probably couldn't even fall asleep in one of your hotels -- I simply need a little more class and quality around me. <BR>If that makes me a total snob, so be it. I'd rather be a snob than a person who doesn't care about their surroundings and probably also their appearance. Why buy good clothes? K-mart polyester cheapies will cover your body and work just as well. Why eat a good meal? A frozen TV dinner will fill you up and provide necessary nutrition. Why spend the money for a car? Public transportation can get you anywhere you have to go. Why spend money on a hairdresser? As long as your hair is clean, that's all that matters. I could go on and on.

For the record, we're in 402...my only complaint is that I wish I could get the modem cord to reacdh the balcony. "Fixing" "our" flags (there are three of them flying from the balcony railing) is just SOOOO much fun. I agree....staying here versus in some other fine places we've stayed is the difference between eating and dining.<BR><BR>Steve

No question about it, Steve, you've got the best room in the house! And one of the best spots in Venice to sit and watch the world go by. I even loved getting up at 6 to watch the delivery gondolas do their thing. Guys stood there and tossed cases of wine, water, soft drinks, etc. across two or three other gondolas while another guy stood on the shore and caught and stacked them. Talk about an early morning workout!

We stayed at the Rialto in 1996. For $30 extra we could have upgrade to a canal view but we passed it up. I've always been sorry about that. I did not care for their no view, crowded breakfast room, with horrible prepackaged rolls or the lobby. The room and bathroom [no window] were O.K. And we did have a real Venetian chandelier!

Just back from hotel rialto and to be honest it is vastly overpriced for what you get. Rooms are 'tacky', plastic chandeliers, we also passed on the chioce of canal view, I certainly did not think that 67euros was worth it. Breakfast is appalling and I also found no character in the hotel or from the staff. Venice as a whole was a huge disappointment, dirty, overpriced and boring.

Would there be anything to be learnt from a post such as Tina's whose opinion on one city is all so negative? Yes, I have learnet to ignore such (a bit insensitive, somehow reminds me of the post from Ethel) posts and will fly to Venice anyway next month for the 2nd time. I even wonder if there is any (objective) truth in what she says about Hotel Rialto. Not that matters to me as I will not be staying at this hotel.