Sina Centurion Palace Hotel in Venice

I’m giving the hotel a low rating because I think they’re operating legally with regard to junk fees, just barely skirting by legal requirements means you get a one star review.

In the US, hotels must post all junk fees up front. This hotel has a 5% “optional” service fee that they tack on right before you check out. The US FTC requires fees to be explicated while booking. Or at least they should tell you when you check in. Booking through Hilton, US FTC laws would apply to US companies offering properties abroad.

Europeans like to say that they give a living wage and social benefits, so tips are not necessary. However, that’s not the case here. Maybe they don’t give the staff a living wage so they’re dependent on a 5% surcharge for wages. They also don’t tell this to you until you’re in a rush about to check out.

In addition, the shower drain is too slow, so if you take more than a five minute shower, the bathroom floods. Maybe this is part of the European effort to be green, but I would hardly call this “luxury.” Even a cheap motel in the US would have the infrastructure for longer than a five minute shower.

When I checked the website, suites were available for booking for my duration, but was not upgraded as a Diamond member. The basic rooms face other rooms’ windows.

So yes, the fee is optional and at the customer’s discretion. However, so is this review.

DO NOT stay here unless you enjoy wiping your bathroom every night after shower or freezing in the room.

- Shower leaks
The shower FLOODED our bathroom the first night. So we had to spend our first night wiping the floors ourselves or else we wont be able to use the bathroom all night.

From the picture you can see line 1 which is the shower door and line 2 which is the most outer drain. And line 1 is clearly outside line 2. So any water that hits the shower door will leak outside because there is no drain, and the shower floor is not tilting inwards to the drain.

We let them know immediately the next morning and they claimed to fix it but during our 2nd night it happened again. So 2nd night is spent on floor wiping again.

We didn't bothering complaining again after the 2nd night because we only have 1 night left and the only way to fix this is to give us a different shower. We didnt want to change room (if they will even offer us) because we got sick from the 1st night (due to issue mentioned below) and were very tired for the day with all the activities.

- Freezing temperature in room
You can see the temperature of our first night is at 45F (7C), and the hotel claimed they had already turned off heating and switched to cooling (can only have 1 at a time). So the room is absolutely FREEZING when we entered.

The only solution hotel provided is the tiny heater (picture attached) after we complained. Given how small the heater is and cold the weather temperature is during the night, you will have to turn up the setting by a lot as you can see from the knob. However, the fan will create a very loud rattling noise that we cant even fall asleep. We got woken up several time over the night either because of the cold temperature or because of the loud noise.
We even had to wear outdoor jackets inside the hotel room.

- Poor management and lack of communication between shift
Every time you let them hotel know, they will just apologize and do nothing to actually fix the problem. They will pretend to send someone or something over, but it wont actually fix anything. And by the time you noticed it's not doing anything, another day is gone.

The staff between each shift also doesnt talk to each other. We had to explain the situation again to different staff every time when it's a different person.