My wife and I had the occasion to stay at Villa Braida for 4 days during a business conference that my wife was attending, and was being held at the hotel. From the corporate point of view the hotel’s reviews from the attendees was quite good. The conference group attendees were well attended to, their meals were excellent, and the overall experience of using Villa Braida for a corporate event was quite satisfactory.

My review differs from the above point of view as I was staying there as a "regular" hotel guest-not a part of my wife's company event.

We arrived from Marco Polo airport via rental car. That part was a piece of cake. The hotel was very easy to find and to get to from the airport. The entrance to the hotel was very impressive. The main, and out-buildings are old and very nice in appearance...from a distance. Once we parked our car, we noticed that the grounds were fairly unkempt: bushes had not been trimmed, grass was overgrown, marble terraces and fountains were chipped, cracked and crumbling and in desperate need of repair. The building itself was quite interesting architecturally, but had a distinct "rustic" look to it with paint peeling in places and moss and lichen growing about the facade. On a brighter note, the front desk staff were fantastic. They spoke english, and were right on the ball with our check-in information, and very, very friendly. There is no elevator in the main building, so be prepared to carry your luggage up to the floors above; all the guest rooms are at least one floor up. Our room was fairly spacious for an EU hotel room, and included an open air terrace. The carpet was a bit stained, and the chandeliers dangled from open holes in the ceiling, but overall the room was very clean and attractive. We did have a small issue with insects, as the windows and door to the terrace did not have screens. We had to open all of them to air out the room since our AC didn't really cool off the room. Once opened, we had flying critters in the room including wasps that had a nest on one of the window shutters. The bathroom was a nice size, but the shower was VERY small (no tub in our room). If you are bigger than the "average" sized person-whatever your definition of that may be-you might have a little trouble with the size of the shower. Closet space was excellent, there was a mini-bar and safe, a desk with a 19in LCD TV, and a queen sized bed. So overall, not too bad.

We arrived late on a Sunday morning, and noted that they hotel served lunch starting at 12:30. When we inquired about eating lunch there that day, we were told that hotel guests could not eat there that day since the hotel had "several events" that day, and the kitchen was too busy preparing meals for those events to serve lunch to hotel guests. That was frustrating. We were lucky to have our rental car so we could go and seek out food elsewhere (quite difficult on a Sunday we found out), but guests with no car were out of luck unless you had the desk call you a taxi. The hotel is not near anything that you can walk to, and you would be risking life and limb to walk on the street that the hotel is located on.

The rest of our stay there was fairly uneventful. As mentioned by other reviewers, the restaurant staff was hard pressed and seemed a bit overwhelmed at times, so there were delays and confusion during the meals that I/we partook of that were not related to the corporate event. The morning breakfasts were quite adequate, but items such as juice, plates and utensils ran out early and were not replaced until you tracked down one of the wait staff and asked for whatever you needed. The hotel’s WiFi access seems not to be a problem as was mentioned in other reviews. When asked for, the front desk provided a free log-on key that was good for 30 hours of time on the system. Once that ran out, you were provided with another key for the same amount of time.

In conclusion, I would say that our experience at Villa Braida was good. The hotel is located in an area that allows easy access to major highways, and is a short distance from the airport and Venice, and many of the Veneto region's medieval walled cities and sights are within a two hour car ride. If you are staying at Villa Braida during a pleasure trip, a rental car is a must. Having to rely on taxi service to even simply go out to dinner would be expensive and tedious, in my opinion. Would we stay there again? I would not rule Villa Braida out. Depending on one’s vacation agenda, Villa Braida might serve quite well.