I am planning a trip to Italy in June and will be making a stop in Venice. The choices of hotels I have are those in the Starwood group:
The Danieli
Gritti Palace
Europa Regina
I have been looking at pictures of these hotels online and I have to say, the rooms in the pictures of the Danieli look very ugly and depressing (although I know it is a top 5 star hotel).
Does anyone have any suggestions or personal prefernces on any of these hotels mentioned.
I am very picky when it comes to hotel rooms and could use some imput. Thank you!

My first disclaimer is that I haven't stayed at the hotels.
But, I much prefer the locations of either the Gritti or the E-R over the Danieli.
Have you checked comments at
tripadvisor.com?

there is a lot of discussion about this on flyertalk.com, under the starwood section.

Will you be using points for your stay? Europa Regina takes fewer points... we picked this hotel for our trip in August 2006. but i did read that some of the rooms could use refurbishing.

We liked the location of the Europa Regina, and the fact that we could take the free hotel shuttle over to the Westin Lido for use of their pool. We'll be there for a week with our children, so this will be a nice perk for them.

I've also been reading (on tripadvisor.com) that their are two sides or buildings to the hotel and one is better than the other. Does anyone have any imput on this?

Try Hotel Cipriani 5+ STARS

David,
We booked 2 rooms at the Europa Regina on our starwood points (10,000 each) in June 2004. They upgraded us (I believe it was an upgrade) to rooms 105-106. Let me tell you, we have stayed at a lot of REALLY nice hotels, and these rooms were amazing. They were beautiful and huge, and they overlooked the grand canal. Even the bathrooms were incredible. We would keep our windows open and hear the singing of gondeliers and Italian music wafting through the air. It was unforgettable.

By the way, they will let you put 4 in a room, and they charge a very steep price for a roll-away, so we were sort of forced to get 2 rooms for our family. We didn't regret it at all, though. It may have been the nicest room we've ever been in. But then again, there's nothing like Venice!!!

(We also stayed at the Excelsior in Rome with our points, and that was really nice, too, and in a great location.)

oh, and by the way, we've stayed at other starwoods in london and Greece, if you're headed there.

I'm so sorry... I meant they WON'T let you put 4 in a room.

Hi, David!

We stayed at the Danieli in March, and enjoyed it a lot. Our room overlooked a side canal rather than the front of the hotel, but the room (in the old, converted-palazzo part of the hotel) was bright, clean, and comfortable.

The hotel itself we found to be charming--as I say, it's a converted (14th or 15th c.) palazzo. The view from the breakfast room was lovely to see every morning, and the breakfasts were very good.

One thing, though: The hotel is only a very short distance from the Palazzo Ducale and the Piazza San Marco, so a constant, heavy stream of traffic runs past the hotel lobby--just walking out the door can be tricky.

But I do recommend the Danieli! Have a great trip!