I am looking for hotel recommendations for a 3 week trip to Italy with my wife. I am a Marriott Titanium and a Hilton Diamond. I am particularly interested in upgrade potential from loyalty and looking for the best overall experience (25th wedding anniversary). We plan to visit Rome, Venice, Florence, and the Naples/Sorrento/Amalfi/Capri region staying 4-5 nights in each location. This will be our first trip to Italy.
I have enough Hilton points to cover the trip but only about 100K Marriott points. I currently have point reservations at the Hiltons (Venice Molino Stucky and Sorrento Palace) and the Rome Cavalieri.
I am really tempted to stay at a one of the Bonvoy properties in Venice and use cash or my limited Marriott points. Some of these properties look fantastic. I could transfer Chase UR points to Marriott IF that was the best use for the points.
Also, I'm not sure about some of the recent reviews at the Hilton Sorrento Palace. This isn't the forum for that however any recent experience is certainly welcome.
Do you have any recommendations at any of the Bonvoy properties in Italy vs. the Hiltons? If anyone has top-tier Hilton and Diamond status which would you choose? Would you just use up your available points or spend the cash? I'm also open to staying at other properties outside of these chains.
Thank you for your help.
I have not stayed at many Marriott and Hilton properties in Italy but I did a 11 days trip with my wife in 2014.
We started from Milan then Venice -> Florence -> Pisa -> Florence -> Orvieto (for Civita di Bagnoregio) -> Sorrento -> Capri -> Positano -> Rome -> Pompeii/Vesuvius -> Paestum and flew back from Rome.
The only Marriott property I used was Rome Marriott Grand Hotel Flora which I spent 160k points for 5 nights.(much cheaper than it is now...)
The hotel was in a great condition but room(even with a minor upgrade to a larger king) was on the small side. It was adequate for 2 people though and my wife really loved the bathroom. We were also offered free breakfasts for two every day at the rooftop restaurant. The view was quite nice there. The location is not bad but still took good amount of walk. It was manageable IMO and still much more convenient than say the Courtyard or the Marriott Park.
At Sorrento I considered Hilton Sorrento Palace but ruled it out due to the inconvenient location. We stayed at Hotel Regina Sorrento in a seaview room. It was quite nice and much easier to walk to the ferry for Capri than the Hilton. At Florence and Milan we stayed at two cheaper local hotels very close to the train stations. In 2014 Marriott did not have that many properties in Italy...as I recall. Now you have much more choices...
I also plan to visit Italy this year to Venice and Rome with kids. For Venice my only choices are JW and Hotel Danieli. I booked Danieli mainly due to the convenient location. For Rome Westin Excelsior is my only option due to 3 people/room. The St Regis, Pantheon Iconic Rome(new hotel), or Palazzo Naiadi all are at more convenient locations and highly rated.(maximum occupancy is 2) I did also consider the Hilton Rome Cavalieri but it costs too many points and is quite far away from the closest Metro station as far as I can tell... My focus is on sightseeing so location is more important to me than amenities in the hotels or even upgrades, your preference may differ.