Don't go to this hotel! (Hotel Minerva e Nettuno (Venice))

Member Name: tartlette

Product:	Hotel Minerva e Nettuno (Venice)
Date:	21/07/06 (744 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Location, big room

Disadvantages: Everything else

This hotel formed part of a month long tour of Europe which I did with my boyfriend. We booked most of our accommodation before we left the UK and we'd booked this because we wanted somewhere cheap and this looked fairly good. How wrong could we have been.

LOCATION AND COST

The hotel is situated very close to the train station which is its one advantage. The address is: Lista di Spagna, 230 - Venezia. It is about 2 minutes walk to the train station and the water bus station.

On the website ( http://www.minervaenettuno.it/index-eng.htm) the prices range from 40 Euros for a single room without bath, bed and breakfast up to 220 Euros for a quad room with bath for half board. For a double room it is 70 Euros without bath (B&B) and 100 Euros with bath (B&B). For half board it is 100 Euros without and 150 with bath. On top of this you can also get a discount (up to 15%) if you book early online with them. Sounds like a bargain? Well we thought so too. We paid around 80 Euros for a shared bathrooom room with half board.

THE EXPERIENCE (!)

When we arrived at the hotel we entered the 'reception' which was basically just a desk in a corridor. We checked in and this was fine. The owner/manager (not sure which) gave us the key and we were off. He then told us that the room we were in wasn't in the main hotel, but in an annexe across the road. This annexe does not have a lift (I think that the main hotel did but i'm not positive) and the stair were fairly steep and we were on the top floor, so remember that when packing!. The annexe wasn't a problem in itself but when we got to the room it wasn't what we had booked.

We booked a double room and when we got there it was a quad with 4 single beds (bit of a romance killer!) The owner's attitude was unbelievable. When we confronted the owner over this he said that he had changed our booking to make it more comfortable for us....what a load of rubbish! He'd obviously got a better offer for the double room so shoved us where he had the space. He offered no explanation and no option to change to a double. He was extremely rude and unhelpful and basically told us to deal with it.

The room itself was fine. There was a shared bathroom, but a sink in the room. The only problem was that it looked over a restaurant so the noise was a little high at night. It was clean and would have made quite a good room if a load of friends were going on holiday together. There was a wardrobe, towel rail, desk and the 4 beds were wooden with white bedspreads. The bathroom was not spectacular but it wasn't filthy either.

Our big problem with the hotel was the food. We'd booked to have the evening meal included in the cost of our room - please please please don't bother with this. It was the worst food I've ever tasted. Firstly the 'restaurant' is miles away from the hotel. The bad tempered owner of the hotel is also the waiter. There were no drinks included, we weren't even offered water, so we went thirsty (we were on a budget and wouldn't pay the restaurant prices). For the main course I ordered goose breast, thinking I would have a nice hot breast of goose....oh no....what actually arrived was four slices of cold goose, from a packet of processed meat, with the wrapping still on some of them. The whole experience was horrible. We saw the waitress go to the plant pots in the front of the restaurant, cut some herbs from them and then sprinkle them onto someone's plate - no washing or anything - so God knows what went on in the kitchen!! We scarpered and didn' t eat there again for the rest of our stay - instead opting for a bread and cheese picnic in St. Mark's Square - which I would reckomend no matter how good the food is!

The breakfast was served in the hotel itself but there was so little on offer that it was hardly worth bothering with.

VERDICT:

This hotel could be so much better if the owner was more obliging - we couldn't wait to leave which was a shame because its a wonderful city. The owner just put us off so much. I thought he was creepy and very rude. The food was such bad quality. We thought that we were getting a bargain and were looking forward to some real food after 2 weeks of bread and cheese but we were really disappointed. Don't bother with this hotel - its worth spending a little more and getting better service and quality!

Summary: Poor hotel with very poor service