Just stayed at the Gritti for two nights on C&P. Upgraded to a room with a view of the Santa Maria della Salute

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Not quite a full canal view, but then, can't complain when you have a balcony. The room was nice, fairly large, and nicely decorated.

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On my right is the balcony, and behind me the vanity, tv, etc. There's also a small desk on the right of the bed. The ceiling is high and there's a Murano glass chandelier, although it's seen better days (the chandelier is slightly damaged in places). I can see some people complaining that the place is "old" and "worn", but then, if you want new and generic, you shouldn't be staying at a place like this in the first place. The bathroom is quite nice, with an oddly placed shower.

We didn't eat at the hotel, although we did have a drink there in the Bar Longhi, which was expensive but nice.

The area of the hotel is quite convenient, being fairly close to San Marco, but like the previous poster said, it's not so close that you're immediately slammed with tourists when you walk out. My relatives stayed at the Bauer and I must say I vastly preferred the Gritti to the Bauer, having seen both. Can't comment on other *wood properties. I did take a look at the Danieli, and I imagine it could be noisy if you have a front facing room, given the crowds.

Would I stay at the Gritti again? Yes.

Stayed at the Gritti to redeem two FWKN.

Arrival:
The best and fastest (30min) is to take the taxi from the airport (100€).We took the water bus (75 min and 12€) to the Marco piazza and then bus no. 1 (different ticket needed) to Giglio which is a 2 minute walk to the hotel.
Lobby is divided by concierege, reception and cashier. Check in was flawless and we got upgraded as platinum to grand canal view deluxe room. Were offered the platinum amenities (fruit basket, 10€, 500 pts, local gift). Do not take the fruit basket as you will have it anyways in your room.

Location:
It is very central but at the same time not in the rush of tourists which we appreciate very much. Danielli in contrast is in the midle of all the rush which I would not like.
A lot of restaurants, also breakfast available, around. Thus the ridiculous prices of the hotel restaurant did not worry us, e.g. club sandwich is 32€.

Room
Hotel was fully booked as it was film festival and late summer but still we were granted an upgrade to grand deluxe canal view which normaly would have cost 1000€ a night. The room (#416) was the only one on 4th floor with canal view. After entering the room one have to clib a 5 steps of a in room stair. Right side is a fairly big white marble bathroom with 2 sinks and bathtube.
After the next door one can find a queen size bad with horrible as usual in itlay blankets (no feather beds on a wool blanket), 2 big chairs, a table with fruit arrangement, old fashioned design TV by B&O. One more step up and one reaches the work desk with another chair. The room had a lot of mirrors.
To the view: As the room is under the roof one could only see outside while standing (windows very small and high like in a "souterrain" flat). It was oaky but I would not call it grand canal view.

Service
Did not use them much, but always professional and fast which is not usual when two young mid twenties arrive at such a place. We made already different bad expierences in other places.
Business center is avaible for free with printer (located left after the elevators)

Overall it is a nice hotel but not worth the normal price of 400€ plus. Better book the E&R or the Best western which is only 100m away from the Gritti.

Stayed at the Gritti to redeem three FWN awards. First weekend in October. Our stay was not stellar.

Arrival:
We arrived from Florence by train late in the evening. We took vaporetto #1 to Giglio (about 40 minutes) and the simple 2-minute walk to the hotel. The vaporetto ticket booths were all closed, so all ticket sales were by a single self-serve machine at the #2 dock. Cash only since our US credit cards would not work at the machine. It was approaching midnight when we arrived to the hotel. We got 72-hour passes which were well worth having.

The "night clerk" checked us in. No upgrade. No evidence of Platinum recognition or comprehension. To be clear, I did not expect an upgrade since the hotel was sold out. In our room was a plate of strawberries and a 375 mL bottle of prosecco on ice. We saved the prosecco for later.

Internet Access:
I asked about internet access and was told that it was free at the business center. I qualified my question by asking about whether I needed a code for internet access as a Platinum in my room and was again told that it was free in the business center. After I got to our room, I returned to the concierge to ask about a paid code for internet. The two night staff at the concierge desk (porters only?) did not speak English and directed me back to the front desk clerk who told me to simply plug into the port in the room, that no code was necessary, and the charge would be 15 Euros per day. I decided to use in-room internet and get the charges corrected later, if necessary. The internet charges were removed without my mention for check-out.

Location:
Nice to be located so close to the Giglio stop. We did not use the traghetto by the hotel, but we did use one later near the market.

Room
The hotel was fully booked for the first two nights. We got what I believe is a standard deluxe room with a King bed on the first floor (above the ground floor). It was a large room. The view was of the wide, low-traffic walkway that we walked along to enter the hotel. We had the next to the last room toward the back of the hotel (away from the canal) in the white portion of the building behind the bricked front portion of the building. As partially seen in the following photo, there is more to the hotel than just the bricked front building. I guess that it's about 7 rooms deep.
LINK to side photo of hotel.

The bathroom had two doors from the foyer. One to the toilette and bidet. Another door to the sink and bath/shower. Inside, a sliding frosted glass door could divide the two portions of the bathroom into separate rooms. A curved shower rod would be an appreciated addition.

On the other side of the foyer were two closets. No matter how carefully we tried to shut them, these doors made a loud slamming noise whenever they were shut. The echoing room amplified this. I mostly avoided using the closets. I would think that some felt or rubber pads could have softened the noise.

In the bedroom, the antique traditional TV was on top of a cabinet that contained the minibar fridge. We had some snacks to refrigerate overnight, but the minibar was not cold at all. I soon determined that it was not receiving any power. In fact, the TV had no power, either. Both plugged into a power strip that was attached to the cabinet, and the power cord on the strip was apparently damaged or worn out or antique. I slid the cabinet away from the wall, got the cord into a working position, and didn't touch it again for the duration of our stay. A bottle of water inside the minibar had a "complimentary" tag on it. I took that bottle, but it was never replaced for the following days.

Also in the room was a chair, loveseat, and small table. The loveseat and its cushions were worn out antique. It was not particularly comfortable. The small table had uneven legs which I corrected thanks to the matchbook by the bed was also an antique, and I used this for my laptop. The room had an oval mirror on the wall which was worn and not to my taste an antique. An antique chandelier hung above the middle of the high-ceiling room.

The view
No view if the shutters were closed. A view of the walkway beside the hotel if we chose to open the shutters in the morning. With construction noise from the building behind us as we got ready during the morning, we chose to keep the shutters closed to maybe help keep out some of the noise.

Service
We pretty much never heard from the staff again after our arrival aside from a brief stop at the concierge desk the next morning. I asked for a map, and we got what seems to be a large color copy of a portion of a map for the main area of Venice (but not including all of Venice). It was immediately helpful, but we later discovered its limitations.

At check-out, they pulled a Platinum Welcome Amenity card from our key box. I had always carried the room key with me whenever we had gone out, so I never knew to check our box for any messages. We were in a hurry, and I chose the local amenity (a "silver bookmark"), but I probably should've just taken the points.

I don't recall even a "buongiorno" from any staff as we passed through the door at any other time. This was quite a different experience than when we stopped into the Danielli one evening. We had a change of plans while we were in the area, so we stopped into the Danielli to get some directions from their concierge for our restaurant across the canal. We were greeted by several staff members as we entered the Danielli, and the concierge was most helpful even though we were not guests there. He provided us with a full map of Venice, looked up the restaurant's website, and contacted the restaurant to check the opening time and to make a reservation for us. The Danielli's lobby was beautiful!

Food
We knew better than to bother with the Starwood hotels for food. I'd already seen their prices.

Summary
I can't speak for the upgraded rooms, but our standard Deluxe room was worn, plagued with noise from neighboring construction during the day and unbearably loud neighboring guests both afternoons, and mechanically deficient. I can appreciate antiques, but I don't have an appreciation for luxury hotel room with worn out or rickety antiques. If that's the antique style that they were going for, it was lost on me. My inclination is to suspect that most of the Deluxe rooms are just neglected with favor given to the upgraded rooms which are so prominently featured on the website.

Next time, I'd book the E&R or Danielli. A Superior room at the nearby Best Western Hotel Ala ( *** ) looks to be preferable to what we got at the Gritti ( *****L ).

I'll post photos after I've had an opportunity to sort through them.

VCE?
 

Going this weekend and staying here for the first time. Looking at transport options from VCE. Looks like car taxis are 100 Euro? What are our other options? I heard you can hire private speed boats? Sure that is also pricey- but cool...any thoughts?

A car taxi from VCE to the Gritti would leave you with a very long walk or Vaporetto ride..
A private water taxi should cost you E100 or you can take the Alilaguna boat from the VCE to San Marco.

Be aware that this weekend is the feast day of Santa Maria della Salute (the church opposite the Gritti on the Grand Canal) and a temporary bridge for I believe some procession crosses from beside the Gritti to the other side. Because of this the Giglio Vaporetto stop which is the one closest to the hotel is closed until Monday.

Sure you don't want to be loyal to the family name and stay 100m down the canal at the Bauer Palazo Hotel :p ? You should be able to get a family and Friends rate.

Uh oh! We're staying here this weekend too. What's the next best vaporetto stop, or are we better off just taking the Alilaguna to St. Mark's and walking? I really would rather not shell out for the water taxi.

Its an easy 10 min walk from San Marco as long as your arrival doesn't coincide with High Water (in which case its an easy 10 min swim).

Vaporetto stop wise its either San Marco or Academia. The stop at the church Salute would probably be ideal as the temporary bridge goes across the canal right to the entrance of the Gritti but I'm not sure if the bridge is just for the procession/pilgrims and you would be going in the wrong direction to try and pretend that your suitcases contained offerings to the Madonna ;)

Walking from the Accademia stop seems reasonable enough.

Anyone know if Grand Canal View rooms are part of the upgrade pool? It appears that I was pre-upgraded to a Venetian 700 room a short while ago from the standard FWN Deluxe room, which is only one category up (though SPG.com still shows availability for better non-suite rooms). We're only going to be in Venice for about 24 hours and not spending that much time at the hotel, so I'm not likely to press the issue at check-in if availability remains the same, but just curious.

Walked over the temporary bridge an hour ago - so Salute is the best stop to get off at. Walk back over the 1st little bridge before the church where there is an arrow indicating the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which you pass behind.After about 100m you will see a sign to the Giglio Traghetto which is where the temp bridge is until Monday.

Only Linea 1 stops at Salute. Linea 1 leaves from the train station (Ferrovia) and the bus arrival area (Piazalle Roma). Salute is the last stop before getting to San Marco. If you arrive at San Marco from the airport on the Alilaguna boat then you may as well just walk from there to the Gritti (10-15 mins)

Full moon almost so High Water is very high - today shin-deep in San Marco around 10am

Thanks for the insight! We're going to get the ACTV pass at VCE and take the #5 bus to Piazzale Roma before transferring to the vaporetto. I guess we'll take the #1 to Salute if it arrives first, otherwise we may stick with Accademia.

quick report
 

a quick report. stayed last weekend on FWN...Emailed ahead to note a Platinum coming in to celebrate 5th wedding anniversary - got usual, upgrade on availability etc, which is cool...flew in and took bus and vapareto (this took about 1 hour, a little tedious). upon check-in they congratulated us on the anniversary and told us we were upgraded to a romantic suite. This was room 328. Not sure how to describe it. For starters, it was a Being John Malkovich thing, where it was located on Floor 3A, and then you had to go up a back staircase to a private hall. The room itself looked like it could have been in Elvis' Graceland -- gold and mirrors everywhere - and blue velvet couches. Kind of cool. It was a suite with a living-room and separate bedroom. One large bath. The downside, no water view, unless you stuck your head out the small window and looked left. Not sure what to compare this to since I have never seen any of their other rooms- maybe they are all like this inside? Though we were told it was their 'romantic' suite. Anyway...We also had a bottle of champagne and strawberries waiting for us in the room. That night we went out and came home too tipsy to open it. So decided to save it for the next night. Well the next day when we came home from shopping -- it was gone? The un-opened bottle has been taken? Anyway, decided not to make a stink of it and never mentioned it. We had amazing weather on saturday, but sunday was funny. We woke up to find the lobby flooded with 6 inches of water. Funny to see a fancy hotel under water. But they proceeded as normal, which was nice and we checked out standing on raised planks...

Funny - we were moved to 328 once when the room we were originally assigned had a bad odor from some carpet cleaning fluid. It is certainly a "special" room, oddly located (that's the nature of an old palace I imagine) and "interestingly" decorated - but pretty comfortable... If you are "in the mood" it can be sort of fun. No views, but then this is the "romantic" suite so I guess they don't expect you to be looking out at the canal.... :p

That's a great description! It's kind of like a Love Hotel meets Graceland in a Palace- but in a good way. Request 328 for a bad view, but a good time

We just stayed at the Gritti for 4 nights in the first part of April. I like the location - a little off the beaten path which is helpful. Received a decent Plat upgrade to a Jr. Suite on the 2nd floor - overlooking the small canal on the side of the property. Front desk and Concierge were pleasant and very helpful.

The bar and outside patio were outstanding! Great views and service. We never ate in the dining room so cannot comment on that. Some construction on the property going on though so depending on where your room is it could be noisy during the day. We did dine at the Danelli though - great food and rooftop views!

Gritti closed as of 1 Nov 11
 

Just stayed two nights (paid for a grande canal deluxe upgraded at time of reservation to best room in category 210-corner facing Santa Maria della Salute). The construction noise is indeed going on in the back part of the hotel where they are remodeling three rooms as part of a test for the complete refurbishment of all rooms and lobby level. Was informed that the hotel will close on 1 Nov 2011 "for at least a year". Changes will not be radical - new bathrooms, flooring in lobby for better waterproofing against aqua alta etc. Staff speak (with horror) at name change to St. Regis Venice! Horrors indeed as this will always be the Gritti Palace. Would be ok to add " a St. Regis hotel behind Gritti name though.
As much as I love the grande dame she does indeed need the nip n tuck. The restaurant should also be overhauled with a more modern approach to cuisine. Dined at the newish Michelin starred "Met" at the Metropole hotel and it was spectacular. Gritti needs to up it's game here.