Where to stay when you leave.
Hotel Cipriani :: That "Anniversary Facelift" Can't Come Soon Enough
6/25/2008 at 2:06 PM
Tags: Cipriani Hotels, Laura Landro, Venice Hotel Reviews, Orient-Express Hotels, Paula Abdul Hotels
Introducing our first submission for a Paula Abdul Hotel.
Earlier this month we wrote about how the Hotel Cipriani in Venice was undergoing an 50th "anniversary facelift", but too bad the Wall Street Journal's Finicky Traveler got there before the new look was completed.
Our fave hotel critic Laura Landro spent a few nights there and the opening of her review says it all:
Our suite at Venice's legendary Hotel Cipriani has stained mauve carpet, ratty faux-bamboo furniture and a platform bed looking into a whirlpool tub-for-two that seems not to have been scrubbed out since the 1970s. We feel positively transported -- to a honeymoon motel in the Poconos.
The hotel is not cheap. Room rates at the luxury hotel (which has apparently spent the last several years coasting on its luxury status without ever adding anything new to the place) were shockingly expensive even for Venice at $2,000 a night.
For that price, Landro encountered "dilapidated rooms and public spaces, indifferent service and mediocre food."
Yet, there is a bright spot here and it has nothing to do with the shine of a stain-revealing black light. The hotel will continue its renovation process with Orient-Express Hotels investing up to $30 million on upgrades. Anything from the 1970s era will be removed, staff will be retrained, and the grimy steam and sauna rooms by the pool will be shut down.
As for those room rates, while Landro saw a price drop after her stay, we think those rates will go right back up when the new look debuts sometime in October.
Know of any other luxury hotels that are just coasting by on media mentions from the 1980s and early 90s? We want to hunt down these "Paula Abdul Hotels" so if you have any suggestions, let us know.
[Photo: amwerewolfinlondon]
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Hotel Cipriani Gives Itself an Anniversary Facelift
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