We recently returned from 2 weeks in Italy. The start of our vacation was Venice and this was our hotel selection. I nearly cried thinking this was going to be how all our hotels in Italy would turn out. To start with, the hotel is not near the boat station and it's very difficult to find, so we were lugging our suitcases through the narrow streets and were lost for about an hour. Then, the people at the front desk were incredibly rude the entire duration of the stay. Last, we got to our hotel room and I literally thought it was a joke or some kind of mistake. We were in "501", which I now see previous people have complained about, but I was of the belief "it won't happen to me..". Well it did and it was terrible. You pay for a normal room and then you get stuck here. The room is right past the kitchen and you hear them clanging plates 24 hours a day. There's not a normal shower and your bedroom window looks out onto the courtyard where guests are eating breakfast, so you can never open the curtains. Further, there must be dust mites or something in the room as I developed severe allergies which made the vacation unpleasant. And the armoire in the room smelled absolutely terrible. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone - terrible value and incredibly disappointing for a 4-star hotel.

We stayed 2 nights in this hotel and although maybe from outside it doesn't look great (perhpas like the majority of buildings in Venice!) the inside is beautiful. The staff were very friendly and proved competent [when we complained of noise of our neighbours (over us) and solved the problem in 2 minutes]. The rooms were very modern and the bathrooms excellent and beds very comfy.
The situation is also a plus being 6 minutes walk from Rialto bridge - if you don't get lost!
Breakfast was fabulous: hot and cold and no shortage.

After looking through the website,we made the booking at Santa marina. To reach that place from the train station was an experience by itself that too lugging all the luggage and climbing the steps and small lanes !! we were literally in tears by the time we got there ! The rooms are spread out in the same vicinity...and its more like a small cottage/ penthouse with wooden floors. The main bedroom and living is on the first floor of the cottage and there is a small sit out area once you enter the room. Funny part is the light is automatically adjusted to be ON for 3 mins. Later we need to manually turn it on ! The bedroom and the living on the top floor is pretty spacey and comfortable. Well, the breakfast is served in the same building as the reception. The spread of the breakfast buffet is just not good. Hardly any varieties....also, wi fi doesnt work in the cottages/ rooms ! one needs to be in the reception/ bar area for the same ! The front office people seem to be more keen on the check out than the check in !! i had to literally request them for half and hour extension before check out ! You can get a private water taxi to the railway station but the cost is Euro 70 onwards! Lots of improvements needs to be done to get this more going for the highly priced rooms to be worth a stay !

Since literally everyone who worked at the hotel when we were there was rude, or seemed put-out when they had to help us, we joked that they must have some kind of "be rude to customers" training! It was unbelievable! On top of that we got stuck in a tiny little nondescript room away from the main hotel, so we never got a chance to see what the regular rooms looked like. I would definitely not return - mainly because of the awful service.