Guest User
October 6, 2022
There was nobody at this hotel to check me in when I arrived. In fact it turned out that there are no permanent staff on the premises at all. There is a phone number to ring for enquiries and check in. I tried this number repeatedly for an hour: no reply. I then contacted the booking agency. The booking agency tried to contact the owners of the 'hotel' (more like a hostel) and were unable to get a reply. The person I spoke to at the booking agency said they would find me somewhere else to stay. I waited an hour, and meanwhile, found a hotel close by and decided to check in there for the night (it was about 17.15 by this time and the light was fading, plus my phone battery was nearly dead). I went over to this other hotel, a quarter of a mile away and asked for a room for one night and explained that my booked accommodation had fallen through. By a staggering coincidence the person I was speaking to was in fact the person who was supposed to be checking me in at Antico Capon! I don't know whether the same people own both hotels or what the set up is but I finally got into my room two hours after arriving. The room was ok, but very shabby, very basic and I was paying about £90 a night. I know Venice is expensive but I expect better when paying that much. Towels were included but there was no hairdryer and the only seating was a telephone table with seat straight out of the 60s. No towel rack in the shower, not so much as a hook, and no shelf for cosmetics etc. Importantly, there was no plug-in mosquito deterrent and after one night I was covered in bites. The door of the room locked from the inside by turning a handle, which meant that I could not prevent someone with a key from opening the door from the outside. Not pleasant for a woman travelling alone and indeed the male cleaner (the only member of staff I saw in a week) did open the door to the room while I was in it. There was no 'Do not disturb' sign. There was nowhere secure to leave valuables and given that the front door to the building was permanently unlocked and the 'office' (used for storing bedding) unstaffed, I didn't feel comfortable leaving anything of value in the room at all, which meant taking all my money, credit cards and passport with me everywhere for a whole week. Finally, the day before I was due to leave, I got a message from the owners: 'Dear guest, please confirm your arrival time. Please mind that you still have to pay. What we have done is only a preauthorisation. For further information please contact your bank.' I had actually paid in full at time of booking the room. I messaged a reply to this effect and asked if they had messaged me in error, and got no response. I then contacted the booking agency who confirmed that I had paid for the room already. I asked them to contact the owners and make sure they knew this, since I had still not had a reply from the owners. Subsequently I got a message from the owners saying 'It is regarding the city tax.' That is not