We are a couple in our '60s, experienced travellers on a budget, and went to Venice to enjoy Carnavale 2007. We spent 4 nights at the Hotel Centrale in Mestre and in general it was a pleasant and enjoyable experience.
The hotel is very well located in the centre of Mestre in a building about 30 years old. It is showing some evidence of its age (like us all) but offers good value for money. It's 3 Star rating is an accurate reflection of it's quality. The room was adequate for sleeping, the bed a large king size (2M or 6ft wide), as normal it was 2 singles bolted together. Clean and comfortable, no smells detected. The bathroom was also clean, the shower was quite small (don't drop the soap), our only genuine complaint.
The buffet breakfast would not inspire a gourmet but was acceptable, wholesome food, mueseli, cheese, cold meats, croissants.
The staff were very helpful, friendly and all seemed to speak excellent English. House maid brought extra pillows immediatly when asked.
The bus stop to Venice was 1 minute walk across the street, tickets sold in tobacconist next door to hotel at cost of one Euro each way, journey takes about 15 minutes. Take bus No. 7 in both directions, return bus stops directly outside hotel front door. Drops you in Piazzale Roma in Venice city.
There are a number of good restaurants within 10 minutes walk of Centrale, we recommend "Ristotante Dante" in Via Dante (next street along) for outstanding seafood, great service in a traditional setting. Cost was about €70 inc service for full dinner including good wine for 2 people.
The Centrale is very convienient if you are travelling via Venice - Treviso Airport as the ACTV airport bus's first stop is in Piazza 27 Octobre, five minutes walk from hotel. (The bus trip to / from airport is 45 minutes and costs €5 one way / €9 return)

This hotel was recommended to me as a good budget accomodation. While the hotel is reasonably clean, the staff are friendly and the breakfast is decent, there are some problems. The hotel is almost a kilometer from the train station, which is not great if you are looking for a hotel close to the train station. The saving grace for tourists is that the bus to Venice is near the hotel, so you do not have to rely on the train on a day to day basis. What really bothered me about the hotel, was that the single room I was in was really tiny and had a very unpleasant smell, that leaving the window open all day did not seem to help. I travel a lot and in my experience this room was really small.

As a side-note, the trip from Milan Airport to Venice is not as simple as some might think. You need to take a bus ride of almost an hour to get from the airport to downtown Milan and then take a train several hours from Milan to Venice. Be prepared to waste something in the order of 20 Euros and 5 hours for the trip.

I think I should start by saying that neither my partner or I are complainers - until now. At 3*s we thought this hotel would be the perfect place as we couldn't afford to stay in Venice itself and there is only a 10 minute bus ride from Mestre (bus stop across the road from the hotel). Although Centrale Hotel is certainly not cheap for Italy it seemed to be the best value, though in retrospect we have stayed in nicer 2*s and they would have been cheaper too!

We arrived late in the evening and check in was smooth, the people at reception are friendly but when we entered our room we were pretty shocked. After seeing lovely photos' of the rooms on websites, we walked into a cramped, dull, tired room that absolutely stank of cigarette smoke (we're non-smokers and had specified that), and to top it off when looking out of our window all we got was a horrible view of what basically looked like a shaft down to another roof and other rooms which made up our entire view! We had also paid for a double room only to be given two single beds, so while we were sleeping separately, the thin walls allowed for us to hear the amorous couple in another room who evidently did get a double bed! Thoroughly depressing to be honest! But it was late so we went to bed and decided to deal with it the next morning.

We went to breakfast before going to speak to reception the next morning. One word adequately sums up the food at the hotel - AWFUL! We ended up living on little stale bread rolls and nutella because the rest of the food was so horrible. I think there were only two choices of ceral; cardboard cornflakes which were so gross I gace up forcing myself to eat them and another ceral that I didn't like and I don't even remember what it was now. The choice was so limited it was a joke - I shouldn't imagine taking children to eat there would be a viable option.

We complained about our room, wanting to be moved but the hotels solution to the stale smoke smell was to open the window wide, and to the double bed, just to push our two singles together and put a bigger sheet over both of them. Both my partner and I frequently lost limbs down the gap at night.

We didn't get moved and to top it off we had to catch a bus back to the airport, and when we asked the receptionist to point us to the right bus station she sent us the wrong way, we missed the last bus and then had to pay £70 getting a psychotic taxi driver to take us to the airport. Naturally, the hotel has refused to compensate us for that 'little blunder' or even apologise.

We stayed for 3 nights. The room was dirty, the lounge was dirty, the staff was rude, the breakfast bread was stale and the coffee machine didn't work! The shower was small and leaked, it was alternately too cold and too hot. It is convenient to the Venice bus, just outside the doors but that's the best that can be said for this hotel.