Beautiful Venice - Bill. Date of travel: May 2006
We had reserved a single and double - we found the rooms nicely furnished. However, the single had no towels when we first arrived and the lightbulb in the bathroom needed replacing. These problems were easily corrected - but the blonde lady at the desk was rude and seemed impatient with us whenever we asked her anything. Breakfast consisted of a basket of different dry crackers. Staff was not very helpful and cold in general. A guy working the front desk at one point also stood outside our window smoking and talking on the phone for hours , with the smoke drifting into our room. We didn't want to keep complaining, so we turned on the ceiling fan and dealt with it. The big issue that came up was our travel alarm clock had broken earlier. This previously hadn't been a problem for us because the other traveler (staying in the single room) still had one and was able to call us each morning to wake us. But this hotel didn't have phones in rooms so we weren't able to get a wake-up call. Furthermore, the double room we were staying in was actually in different building from our companion in the single room - a smaller building across from main hotel. This was alright until the last day we had to be up very early to make our flight home. We asked the blonde lady if she had an alarm clock we could borrow - she had one, but the battery was dead and she didn't have a replacement. She was extremely rude and uncaring about our situation, claiming the hotel "wasn't a 5-star hotel." We weren't expecting - or asking for - 5-star service. An alarm clock was a basic need for us! She said she might be able to come knock on our door when we needed to wake up - but also made it clear she was very busy and might not have time. She seemed very indignant and put-out . . . I understand we weren't staying at "a 5-star hotel" - we didn't want to stay at a 5-star hotel. I didn't think we were asking for anything unreasonable given we had to be at the airport. Not what I call good customer service. At all.