My wife and I were booked to spend 2 nights at this "hotel" during late September while on a honeymoon trip to Europe. With flight delays in Paris, we arrived late (near midnight) and were ready for some much needed rest.

However, on arrival to the Antiqua Venezia, we were stopped in the second floor stairwell by the manager. He insisted there had been a "plumbing issue" (seems the common claim based on other reviews) and would not even allow us up to see the hotel. Instead, he insisted he had other accommodations booked and made us wait 15 minutes in a dark stairwell while he got his things together.

After the prolonged wait in the stairwell, he wandered back down with a girl who would not give her name (nor would the owner) and simply described herself as a "friend." They insisted that they had booked us a great alternative. Saying they knew it well and it was very nice. Then proceeded to wander the alleyways of Venice for near an hour apparently unable to find the place they knew so well.

By about 1am, my wife exhausted and near tears had had enough. She asked the owner kindly to just let us find our own place and give us a refund. He continued to insist he knew where it was and it would just be 2 more minutes. When my wife finally began to cry, I informed him that he would be giving us a refund and leaving us to find our own place.

At this point, he began cursing ("what the --" was shouted at me at least a handful of times) and screaming that he would not be giving us a refund. He then proceeded to follow us from hotel to hotel shouting at us as we desperately tried to find anyone with availability at 1 in the morning. My wife, terrified and in tears, was at points asking staff at booked hotels if she could stay in the lobby for the night because she was too afraid to enter the dark streets with the owner still following us around screaming. At points, I would confront him and he would drop back out of sight only to show up behind us screaming again a few minutes later.

Finally around 1:30-1:45 when we made our way into the more open (and well policed) area around Piazza San Marco, he disappeared. Thankfully, the Hotel Danieli had an open room for the night (and my credit card was no where near it's limit). The concierge and staff there did their best to comfort my wife as they prepared the room and even offered to come with me to the police station the next morning and serve as translators if I wished. I declined the latter, however, as my wife wanted out of Venice first thing in the morning after the evenings confrontation.

Funniest thing of all, two days later the owner of Antica Venezia began sending us "thank you for your stay" emails apparently as a paper trail to try and convince the credit card company he had not done anything wrong. Our bank is still fighting the charges and do not know if we will ever see our money, but I would recommend everyone avoid this crooks hotel (if not only for their money, but their own safety).

We stayed at this hotel a couple of weeks ago. The hotel is not at all clearly marked and when you do find it and get inside, you find only a dark, empty dungeon. There's no indication that this is actually a hotel! You have to walk up 3 flights of stairs with rickety railings before you ever get to what they call a lobby, and we had to carry our bags up 4 flights of stairs before reaching our room. There was no working air conditioning, no phones, no tv and the electricity went out frequently. Their excuse was that there was a temporary problem with the electric meter, but reading the other reviews, I can see that they've been using this same excuse for months! We had to keep the windows open because of no A/C, consequently the mosquitoes were rampant. The location is noisy, but great for shopping. The hotel is not so great. We stayed at much better hotels in Florence and Rome and paid less. Do yourself a favor and stay somewhere else.

Major issues; Booked two room for 3 nights.First the directions suck. Arrived at a dismal looking hotel front with broken facade, not old. No one answered the buzzer, just open the door and you are in a cellar. This dark cellar as no lights, but you can see the you see stairs- do you go up, up to where? No direction or that the office on 6th floor and 63 stairs to climb with luggage. Get there and bathrooms are out in both rooms, They stick us up in two different crappier hotels (annex as they referred to it) they don't even know the names to and cant guarantee they will be able to the next night. Next day they haven't even called the dang plumber! Do not put your selves through this misery. DNR- Do Not Return. Stay on the waterfront at a nice hotel.

My husband I stayed this hotel in September 2011. When we arrived in Venice, we were having difficulties finding the hotel on the map we had. We tried to call the hotel a couple of times but it said the number was not working. We told the front desk agent about the phone number and he said "you should have checked the website." I didn't necessarily expect an email with info that the number had changed, but an apology would have been nice. When we finally found the hotel, we were a little dismayed at the 4 or 5 flights of stairs we had to climb with 100+ pounds of baggage. I looked and still could not find info about the stairs on their website. Luckily, we are able to carry 100+ lbs of luggage up, but if you're not, be aware. Plus, the railings were quite unstable.


When we arrived, we were told that we could not use the hair dryer as you were having difficulties with the meter. When we got into the room, we were warm and tried to turn on the air conditioning. After inquiring at the front desk, we were told that the air conditioning was turned off due to the meter issue. Luckily, the weather during sleeping hours was pretty cool so we tried to sleep with the windows open. Unfortunately, our windows opened to a busy street and we only got a few hours of sleep each night. Although I understand that the meter issue is not this hotels fault, I don't think the customer should have to bear the unsatisfactory conditions and pay full price. On our last day, we talked to the front desk about this and he called one of the owners who said "It's September and they should not have to use the air conditioning." and gave us 10 Euro off. When paying 190 Euro a night, I find this completely unacceptable. It wasn't necessarily the lack of a/c, rather the lack of sleep and the mosquitoes due to the no a/c.

And the customer service was so terrible I didn't feel comfortable complaining about the bathroom shower filling up within 2 minutes of the shower coming on. We had to turn the shower on and off. And honestly, this wasn't a huge deal to us, we just dealt with it.

They also tout tv with satellite on their website. It's a tiny tv that we couldn't even figure out how to use. Again, not a huge deal. Just misleading.

Their website makes their hotel look extremely nice. The rooms we fine, the bed was big and nice, but it wasn't nearly as nice as the website made it sound. And although they tout these great amenities, they don't really do anything to make it up if the amenities are not available.

I contacted the hotel after our stay to let them address the situation because I thought the 10 Euro off was unacceptable when my husband I didn't get sleep for 3 nights and couldn't get ready each day because we couldn't use the hairdryer (which we both need to look okay!) They wrote back a rude response. I work in the hospitality industry and find their customer service completely unacceptable for this price.

The good is that the location was great! It's a couple blocks from the main square and if the windows didn't have to be open, it really would have been a much better stay. Still not what the website indicates, but much better than we had.

I wanted to write this response because I used Trip Advisor to choose this hotel and it wasn't at all what I thought. I am from the US and usually stay in Holiday Inn Expreses when I travel, so to pay 190 Euro a night was much more than I usually spend and I stayed in a room that was under the type of room I would stay at a Holiday Inn Express and the customer service is something I would expect at a crappy roadside motel.