Hotel Indigo Venice Sant'Elena

What is your Priority Club status?
Plat Amb

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Yes, rather happy myself.

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
I believe it's the 2 Twin Bed Premium Room. No upgrades since I believe that's the highest room type.

How are the rooms?
Very tasteful. This is one of the Indigoes where things are very nice and tasteful (like Belgrade) rather than garish and weird. Leather sofa, which is actually more comfortable than the Poltrona Frau leather seats Italo has on their trains, alongside with two twin beds (of course!). Furnishings are in line with Venice, which didn't scream Venice but reminded you of it. I don't really know how to explain it, and unfortunately I have no photos of it.

Quite liked the bathroom, but the lightning system is a bit weird - there are a few lines you control inside the toilet, and there are a few that you control from outside. Cue me pressing buttons around to try to understand how it all worked. Came with a shower area (and no bath, thankfully!), with a shower/rainshower setup - which is very appreciated because my sister hates rainshowers and I absolutely adore it.

I don't exactly remember the brand of the toiletries, but they were provided in small little bottles rather than the large bottles appearing around IHG properties.

The building is five stories tall, including the ground floor (so ground + 1-4 floors). It is, however, a refurbished non-hotel-purpose-built building, and the lift feels a bit 'old' and slow for a rather new development. I'd say it adds to the charm, though. There are rooms on the ground floor, where the tiny reception and restaurant is, but I was allocated one on the 3rd floor. Room overlooked the restaurant's garden, and was allocated to the right-side of the hotel (rooms X01 to X05 I believe), which is the quieter wing. All rooms on the right-side seems to overlook the garden if I'm correct.

How is the exec. lounge?
No exec lounges in this hotel.

What was good and what was bad?
Good
Location: This is genuinely as good as it gets for being in Venice, without paying either 1) eyewateringly expensive/rip-off prices right being gobsmacked in the centre and 2) being chucked out in Mestre or somewhere else. I do acknowledge it's my personal preference too, but a part of the Venice lagoon islands without the tourist crowds and just 10 minutes by the vaporetto (waterbus) right next to St Mark's Square? count me in! It really made getting into town easy and back for a morning sightseeing before the day-tourist hordes descended, and made it easy to get to the train station bypassing the Grand Canal (there's a quick direct vaporetto - 4A and 5A iirc - to the train station and around Venice that avoids the Grand Canal). This is also probably where you actually get to see how Venetians really live, and it was extremely nice to see a bit of that here (people wearing heels and dancing at 10pm in the park? where else do you get that?).

Loyalty recognition: I think this is the only non-Intercontinental where I was addressed as Plat Amb. I was rather surprised since for me, non-ICs acknowledge the Plat bit but not the Amb. Check-in manager also mentioned that he'll get me the room on a higher floor that overlooked the garden, which I appreciated. Breakfasts for Plats are charged at 10 EUR instead of 20 EUR if you were to have it there, but I'm not sure if that just reflects the price one pays as a member via IHG channels.

Rooms are very new, and rather spacious.

Bad
Nothing really, but if I had to quibble, they might need a bit of a faster lift. It was also a bit steep in terms of $, but par for the course for stuff on the Venetian lagoon islands.


Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?
Definitely if I'm back in Venice. I paid 290 EUR for one night, which is expensive, but that's considering 0) it's Venice, 1) I got what was probably the only twin premium left (classic rooms with single-beds were going for 220-odd), and 2) I booked it, on the day of arrival, at 2ish pm when it was clear I wasn't going to get back to Milan on time. Any other option would have had us chucked out in Mestre or just bleeding from paying for a bog-standard place in the centre of town. Or probably a thousand quid on the St Regis a short walk from St Mark's if you fancy that.

Additional note: Osteria da Pampo which is quite near to the hotel, is pretty good. I had some of the freshest seafood I had in my life here, and I'm saying that as someone who lived/lives in Singapore and has had seafood prepared fresh from a tank of live stuff more than enough times I can count.