We choose not to rent a car for our recent ski trip to Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. We were able to easily take the Cortina Express bus from the Venice airport and we were told by the hotel that there was a regular shuttle into town and ski buses to get to the ski areas. This was all true, but the hotel was a 30-40 minute walk out of town and the shuttle bus stopped running at 7:30 p.m., so we were forced to take a cab back from dinner every night. The one night that we couldn't find a cab, I called the hotel (as I had been instructed to do before we got there); I was initially told that there was nothing they could do because the shuttle had stopped running. I asked them to call a cab for us, which they did and we were able to get back without too much trouble. It would have been nice to be closer to the shops and restaurants instead of having to make every trip to town an expedition. The rooms were quite large and comfortable, with lots of storage space, although not elegant or upscale, as one would expect for the price we were paying. We only ate at the hotel restaurant one night and found it to be overpriced and not especially good. It is a fixed price menu, so if you're not really hungry, you still pay for a lot of food. One of the waiters put real pressure on us to order a particular wine and became very abrupt when we declined. The breakfasts were good. The hotel caters to families and there was a lot of hall noise and noise from the floor above, so even though it was out in the quiet country, it wasn't especially quiet. One reason we booked this hotel was because it had a hot tub, but we only used it once. It was a small portable, awkward to get into and crowded and we found the big bathtub in the room to be just fine. The staff was generally very nice and English was spoken.
- Mirage Hotel Cortina d Ampezzo
