Hotel Carlton on the Grand Canal

Staff were amazing - always kind, friendly, and very helpful. The hotel itself was absolutely beautiful - rooms were clean and well cared for. The breakfast was typical as we've seen so far in Italian hotels. The rooftop restaurant staff do need a special shout-out, however - they put so much attention into giving us a lovely evening to celebrate a birthday. They truly made it one of a kind! My only caveat was that the AC was not great, and so the rooms were usually quite warm!

This was my second stay at this hotel - the location is convenient from piazzale Roma (only two bridges to go through with your luggage). This time around I had a ground floor garden-facing room. It was tastefully decorated and had all of the accessibility features you might need if you are of old age or have reduced mobility. This wasn’t something I cared about but mentioning it in case it is relevant to some future guests. Some areas I’d love this hotel to improve on: - front desk services: there were two challenging interactions with the same gentleman. One instance I asked for help to book a concert. They made a reservation without disclosing I had to pay cash right this moment. Had I known I would have booked online. The second I asked for help to call a water taxi company, it didn’t have availability, they then called another one with a quote 3X higher and when I refused told me I could take the bus, they didn’t give me any more information (timetable, direction, etc). It would be great if the front desk could have negotiated rate and preferred vendors on speed dial for such requests - garden room privacy: I was given a ground floor room facing the garden. Other guests routinely stood in front of my door and window to chat and occasionally stared at my door with curiosity (the door is made of glass and facing the bed), it felt like being in a fish tank which made my stay not very relaxing. I had to keep the curtains closed which gave the room a cave-like feel. The cleaning crew once entered without knocking when I was in bed taking a nap. A dissatisfied couple of guests stared at my door insistently and wouldn’t leave I had to get up and go to the door to inquire about the reason behind the staring. They said they paid for a superior room but didn’t feel their room was meeting their standards and was too dated so were comparing with other rooms in order to go complain possibly to ask for another room. - garden room comfort: the bed was really hard and only had an old scratchy cover (no duvet). The room was exceedingly hot likely due to the bathroom heater and given that the curtain were always closed (poor ventilation, no natural light), the heat plus the darkness made the stay not very comfortable. My first stay was much more enjoyable and I had very good exchanges with other front desk employee so it could be that this much poorer experience only had to do with a few staff members and a particular type of rooms (garden ground floor rooms).