Hotel Ai Mori d'Oriente, Venice > Reviews > Oriental Venetian bliss

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Excellent
Quality of Rooms	Good
Standard of Service	Average
Quality of Facilities	Average

Advantages:	Close to the water bus drop off, central to the dity
Disadvantages:	Room very small, walls paper thin

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Ai Mori d'Oriente Hotel

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We found this to be a charming small hotel. It straddles two buildings which is possibly its only disadvantage, in that we had to go up and under, round and down and up and under again through very narrow corridors to get to our room. Venice is an old city and I suppose that one of the charms that the buildings are not clones of each other.

The hotel has a breakfast room, but does not provide evening meals, though you can get a snack from behind the bar, light salad or sandwiches. The bar staff are friendly but stop work with a punctuality which does not reflect the needs of the guests still in the bar!

On arrival we were met by the night porter, an extremely friendly Venetian. The staff in the hotel on a whole though were fairly non engaging. Breakfast was absolutely excellent and is served in a large covered courtyard, with lots of eating options. Scrambled egg and bacon costs extra though.

Our room was small, and was located in the attic space, and it felt like that. We had non-functioning air conditioning, we left the window open and that was however fine. In fairness we did not raise this with the hotel, and it maybe that it could have been easily resolved. There was a prominent emergency light that a previous guest had the foresight of covering with a panty liner - it worked well!

The bathroom was excellent in both quality and cleanliness. The bed was comfortable with ample storage space and a well stocked mini bar. However there was very little room to move around the bed. The room had a multi language television options.

The skylight windows gave a fantastic viewnof the night sky, but daylight was blinding with no means of shade.

Getting there
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We travelled in from Dublin using Air Lingus, sadly they let us down with a huge delay despit our prompt arrival at the check in. At Marco Polo Air Port, we were able to utilise the fantastic local transport which collected us at the door and took us right to the island. This option had been our second choice, forced upon us due to late arrival, as we had planed to take the ferry. We used the 3 day Public Transport travel pass at approximately €39. This is highly recommended as you can use it in 99% of the local transport around the islands.

One pointer from Fiona, you only need to stamp your 3 day pass once to start time running [but who knew]!

It must be said that the Hotel guidelines on getting there were flawless.

Transport round Venice
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The Vaporetto (water busses) were very simple to use, and again the travel pass was fully usable on these. Get a map with big letters if you are of a certain age, another Fiona pointer [ she ended up buying a magnifying glass]. In all seriousness though even with my glasses I had difficulty reading the map, but that's the fun of being away.

We wondered through a beautiful city that was hard on the feet as all the streets are stone.

Expensive Venice
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One sandwich, two hot chocolate drinks, one expresso and one ice cream cost €94 in San Marco Square, but it was worth it, but we only did it once.

Be wary of the tourist restaurant's, as we did not feel that we got value for money there. Our best was chosen in the region of our hotel where we got 5 course traditional meal with bottle of good wine for €90.

Came away from Venice having spent a fortune but it was on unmissable experience.

Overall
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The hotel was excellent value for money, it was clean and very conveniently located both for transport and walking. We would recommend this to anyone.