We thought staying outside of Venice central would be a sensible option to get more value for money than many expensive city based accommodations, however, never again!

I chose this hotel/villa for several reasons but felt let down on all accounts.

The Villa website said it had a "shuttle bus" to/from the airport & that getting to/from the hotel to the centre of Venice was quick & easy with regular local buses that took 20 minutes. This was not the case at all - there is no shuttle bus to the airport - they just mean the public buses which means two buses & a very long journey + waiting time. There are only two local buses per hour so not ‘frequent’ as such. It was very very very difficult to identify which bus stop to get off when trying to find the Villa for the first time - none of the locals on the bus knew where the Villa was, nor the bus driver (the villa staff had told me via email that if I asked the bus driver he would inform me where to get off – that was not the case). We had to guess which stop & got it wrong as we were allowing 20 mins for the journey as suggested by the villa website. There is no way the bus journey from the Roma square (city bus terminal) to the Villa is 20mins, it is at least 45 minutes sometimes 1 hour or more as traffic is very bad & this was our experience on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday & Monday - it is a local suburbs bus (not a shuttle) & it is crammed full & stops at every bus stop.

Getting tickets for this bus is also difficult as there is only one little shop near this Villa which was closed on all but one occasion (we were there for 4 days) so you can't buy tickets ahead here, some bus drivers sold us tickets, one bus driver charged us 9 euros each when we knew the journey was 2.40 each - he was very rude when we challenged this & insisted he was right (the tourist info office told us after that this can be common).

Upon arrival at the Villa they had given the room I had requested (at the back of the Villa away from noisy road) to someone else by mistake so we had a front bedroom - very noisy traffic. The Villa is on a very busy main road & although there are two villages within walking distance it is not a pleasant stroll - cars were travelling at least 50 miles per hour & there is no pavement as such so we did not have a sense of being in the peaceful relaxing 'Riveria' as suggested by the Villa website.

The staff claim to speak English but could not understand questions such as "where is it safe to cross the road” so we did not find them useful.

Believe it or not I have never written a complaint before about anywhere I have travelled or stayed but this Villa has left us with a bad memory of our Venice trip - dreading the crowded bus journey to & from the centre, the wasted time stuck in traffic - even on Sunday, the worry about getting off at the right bus stop near to the Villa to avoid walking on the dangerous road, and being ripped off by the local bus driver.

I would rather have taken out a loan to afford to stay in the city centre & not had this awful experience.