Originally Posted by
Pausanias
In Venice I would definitely avoid the traditional five star palaces - the Gritti, Danieli, Bauer etc. All are crawling with tour groups and while the map looks to be a fab location for all hotels you will quickly tire of the noise and the hordes of tourists, especially when a big cruise ship is in the lagoon.
I had a lovely stay at the Gritti last summer. It's well beyond the lagoon, so no cruise ships. (I'll never stay at the Danieli again though for the location reason. Horrid amount of tourists passing by.) The Gritti has a lovely location for me with a vaporetto stop very near by. I loved sitting on the deck over the water, watching the canal traffic.