Many pre-cruise Americans stay here. It is an unattractive modern building with uninspired rooms, with an expensive so-so restaurant next door, and you can take the #5 bus to the water bus and see Venice. But for almost the same price, you can stay near the Grand Canal in charming hotels decorated in Venetian style with Murano chandeliers. The staff at the Marriott is most helpful and the breakfast is ample. But after staying in Venice proper, I found the rooms and location at the Marriott depressing. Check out Hotel Violinio d'Oro and drag those suitcases into old Venice.

we chose this hotel for a 2 day pre cruise stay; since there were 4 of us and a total of 7 pieces of luggage, I did not want to be lugging them through the streets of venice; it was close to the airport, offered a free shuttle to the hotel and about 10 minutes away.. We had 2 rooms, nicely appointed, very clean and the staff was very helpful. the bus that ran every 20 minutes to piazza roma was located directly across from the hotel, it cost 1.5 euros for a round trip and the duration was about 20 minutes. there is a restaurant and a cafe on the premises, breakfast is buffet style and on sundays only a buffet dinner is available; if you could avoid it, do not chance the sunday nite buffet, it costs 20 euros and the food is mediocre at best. they will also arrange a van to the pier for 33 euros, which was reasonable for the 4 of us. using the bus and the vaporetto was a great way to experience venice without spending a great deal of money......because of our declining dollar we found everything to be high. this hotel was very reasonable, for 2nites and 2 rooms it came to under $1000.

Stayed there prior to the start of a cruise. Overall good experience though one night heard people moving around in the room above. Definitely a good place to stay before a cruise. If you are interested in getting the best deal, do look into AAA Motor Club price which was 51 Euros less than price provided through Marriot.

My flight was scheduled to come in at 2:15 pm. I learned the day before that their shuttle from the airport does not run between 2 and 4 pm. (Many stores close during that time as they seem to take a siesta.) Keep this in mind when you plan your flight. There is a bus you can take from the airport to just across the street from the hotel.

On a positive note, the hotel has beautiful wood work in the rooms which are very modern. A nice luxurious touch is the heated towel holder! The lobby has several nice seating areas.

They have a small coffee bar area in the lobby. One night a group of people going on the cruise got together there the night before leaving for the ship. While the hotel staff was initially very nice about our gathering, at one point they started sushing us. Were we really that loud? Could people on the floor above have heard us? Not sure if this was a cultural thing or perhaps there was too much noise for the front desk people.

There is a bar/restaurant in the hotel that has good pizza. One easily can feed two people. While they have a gym, it is very small and equipment is limited. However, when you are wide awake at 1 am, the exercycle can be a great way to burn some energy!

You can catch a bus across the street to get into town. There is a small grocery store down the street, past some small restaurants on the same side of the street as the hotel.

They have a nice size buffet breakfast in the morning that is not included in the cost of your room. They won't have you sign anything after using it. When you check out they will ask you about how often you ate there.

People at the front desk were helpful in providing informration on where to catch the bus into town. They also arranged a shuttle to the ship though there was some confusion the day it arrived. Several groups of people were waiting and it wasn't clear which shuttle was called for which group though it all worked out in the end.

They have two computers on the main floor but the first night they were not working. Person at the front desk blamed the rain for the problem which made it seemed like the set up wasn't very sophisticated. You do need to buy time on the computer with a credit card (don't buy more time than you need at one sitting as the time is for consecutive hours. You will also need to provide an email address for billing confirmatioin. Since being back, I've had some Italian spam email since then but it has not been a major problem.

We stayed here for 5 nights before our cruise. Not the ambiance of Venice, but a lot less costly. Free pickup from the airport. Nice, comfortable room. Very clean. Easy to take the bus into Venice. We purchased a 3-day travel card so we could get on and off the vaporetti as much as we wanted and it also covered the bus to and from the hotel. Several decent restaurants within easy walking distance. A favorite for pizza and very tasty kebab wraps was ShocKebab. Mousa will be happy to show pictures of his two children.