Originally Posted by
porciuscato
As others have mentioned, Gold does not entitle you to an upgrade. Considering it's summer season, nobody should expect an upgrade at any level. And yeah, it is a big gesture to comp you breakfast. The combination of the setting (sweeping Venice views) and the food made it the best breakfast we've ever had, excepting perhaps the terrace breakfast at the Grand Bretagne in Athens. I would not expect to stay at the one of the premier hotels in one of the most expensive tourist cities in the world and get a cheap breakfast.
We stayed two weeks ago as Ambassador guests and used SNAs to upgrade to a beautiful (albeit view-less) suite with two balconies. We were concerned by some of the previous negative reviews. But our overall experience was comparable to what yjc281 and odie11 described above. Service was really quite impeccable.
If you don't like the crowds out the front door, you take two quick left turns and you're out of the crowds in about 90 seconds. But anyhow, it's Venice. It has been crowded with tourists for literally hundreds of years. Thomas Jefferson was a tourist in Venice! If you don't like crowds, go elsewhere. We just came from a stay in Sarajevo, for example. Didn't see a single American tourist there. Not one.
I kind of understand his frustration as I had a similarly bad room at Westin Excelsior Rome. However I'd say Danieli's customer service is a lot nicer that they kindly offered free breakfast to him for 3 days. (Westin refused to do anything at all for me as a Titanium member) I learned at Santorini (right before Venice) regarding tourist crowds. Basically I had to follow the "9AM rule" to take any important family pictures before 9AM to avoid 100s of people in the background. At Venice we visited Doge's Palace in late afternoon (maybe 5PM or so) with very few people in it. It was a much nicer experience.
For water taxi, 130 EUR going to the airport is not a bad price. I paid 153 EUR from the airport to Danieli for 5 people and 7 bags.(though Chase covered 1/3 as I used UR points) For water taxi to the train station I paid 81 EUR. I do agree that "enhanced Internet" at Danieli is still very slow so I had to rely on my Vodafone data plan which I bought in Greece.