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Venice: Hotel Continental Venice: "Worst Hotel Experience Ever"May 29, 2005: A TripAdvisor Member, NY, NY

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I stayed at this hotel in:May, 2005

I traveled to this hotel with: spouse/partner, a large group or tour

My visit was for: extended vacation

Would I stay at this location again: no way!

I recently stayed in the Hotel Continental for a few days as part of a tour. I ended up leaving the tour a day early because the hotel was so bad. I paid approximately $500 extra (changing my plane ticket and paying for a water taxi) just so I could get out of there as fast as I could. So that should give you an idea of how bad it was. There was only 1 more day left in the tour but I literally could not spend one more night there.Everyone on my tour hated the hotel. It is not well maintained, the rooms are incredibly old fashioned and dirty, the staff was horrible, the lobby is tiny and not nearly as nice as the two nearby hotels which have full floor lobbies with mahagony counters...and cost the same...(yes, I tried to switch hotels but the others were booked) When we first arrived at the hotel we quickly found out that the air conditioning didn't work. We were told that it broke several days ago and a repairman should be here 'tomorrow'. Why wasn't he there several days ago when it first broke? Not only that, the entire staff refused to apologize and simply laughed when anyone asked when it would be fixed. They just didn't care. Any 'real' hotel would at a bare minimum offered its guests bottles of water so that they didn't pass out when in their 90 degree rooms. And nicer hotels would have provided fans (which my incredible tour director managed to borrow from a different hotel, since of course the Continental didn't have one)Like I said, the place is dirty, grimy, and just plain awful. I will admit that there are a FEW decent rooms in the hotel which must be where the other reviewers stayed, but those rooms are very hard to come by. Our first night there we had a room which was disgusting. The wall paper was peeling, there was dirt on pillows, and to top it off, the floor sloped. Yes, if you put a bottle on the bed it would roll to one corner. The whole room was on a slant. After about 3 hours of arguing and trying to convince us that they had no other rooms, our tour guide managed to convince the staff to give us another room. The room they gave us, I admit, was somewhat nice. It was obviously renovated somewhat recently, unlike the other room which I don't think has ever been renovated (in fact, there really was no comparison). However, at 8:45 the next morning I was informed that I had to quickly pack b/c they were taking that room back and giving me another. When we got back from the tour that evening we got our new room, which was now moved from the 1st floor (where it was already hot enough), to the 3rd floor where it was unbearable. Not to mention that the bed in this room was broken as it completely sloped inward from both sides. And again, the carpet was dirty and the wallpaper was peeling. That's when we called the airline and made our flight a day earlier...So, in summation, I would do everything in my power not to stay here. If for some reason you must, do your best to get it in writing that you will have one of the more modern rooms, and that the air conditioning will work. But I'm sure the staff will just laugh and not care one bit about what you want...