Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort

A 5-star on the beach of the Venice Lido, at Lungomare Marconi 41, with 196 rooms and suites, a private beach and, by the hotel’s own account, 5 restaurants and bars. It is a seasonal hotel, now in the hands of Iconic Hotels & Resorts, which is restoring it.

It opened in 1908 in Moorish style and has been the historic home of the Venice Film Festival since 1932. The site gives 2 figures for the opening party: 3,000 guests on the history page, 30,000 Venetians and over 3,000 guests on the Festival page. A scene of “Once Upon a Time in America” was shot in its Sala Stucchi.

The official catalogue lists 16 types: 9 rooms, from the 25 m² Classic Double on the courtyard to Grand Deluxe and Premium rooms of 28–30 m² facing the courtyard, Venice or the sea, and 7 suites, from the 45 m² Junior Suite to the 150 m² Lido Two Bedroom Suite for 6. The look is Moorish, with striped tented ceilings and rattan furniture.

“Premium” rooms are the pale-toned ones the site shows renewed; Booking.com says a selection of rooms and suites was refurbished in 2026. In 2026 reviews, guests given a new room praise it: ask for one when booking, as the others have yet to be redone. For 2 types, Grand Deluxe Venice View and the Family Room, the site gives no floor area.

On the seafront of the Lido, the long, narrow island between the lagoon and the Adriatic: the beach lies in front, and at the back a canal brings launches to the hotel’s dock. The Palazzo del Cinema is 251 metres away, a 3-minute walk, and the Santa Maria Elisabetta vaporetto landing 1,855 metres, 25 minutes, on OpenStreetMap routes.

The hotel’s page on the Lido calls it an oasis of quiet, with avenues of Liberty villas and cycle paths, and guests agree: several pick it to come back to silence after a day in Venice. The exception is the Film Festival in early September, when the seafront outside fills up.

St Mark’s Square is on the other side of the lagoon, 4 km in a straight line. The hotel’s shuttle boat leaves its private pier every 30 minutes from 09:00 to 21:00 and is free for hotel guests during the season. The crossing takes 15 minutes, according to the shuttle page, edited by the hotel on 1 September 2026, and the Getting Here page, both read on 15 October 2026.

Only departures from the hotel are published, and full timetables are kept at the concierge desk. Coming back later means a water taxi, or a vaporetto to Santa Maria Elisabetta, a 25-minute walk from the hotel. For Murano and Burano, the hotel says, take the public vaporetti from the Lido.

From Marco Polo Airport the quickest way is a private water taxi, about 40 minutes to the hotel’s dock, according to the Getting Here page; otherwise travel by road to Piazzale Roma and continue by vaporetto or water taxi to the Lido.

The hotel sells a meet-and-greet transfer from the airport and from Santa Lucia station, and an unassisted water taxi around the clock, for up to 4 people; fares are not published. The free shuttle is no use on arrival day, as bags are not allowed on board.

Yes: the Lido is one of the few Venetian islands with cars. They cross on ACTV’s route 17 ferry, which links Tronchetto with Lido San Nicolò; from the landing it is 2.9 km to the hotel, about 5 minutes’ drive.

The hotel has no parking of its own, according to its About page, the most recently updated (1 September 2026), read on 15 October 2026. The Getting Here page says the hotel has paid parking on site, unavailable during the Film Festival; the About page says it has none and points to Piazzale Roma; Booking.com lists private parking and Google’s card calls it free. The only published rate is Expedia’s: self-parking at €40 a day.

Yes, and it is the reason to come: the beach is a short walk from reception and open to hotel guests for the season, which the official page runs from the end of May to mid-September. Booking.com dates the beach service from mid-June to mid-September.

Sunbeds and loungers are included. The hotel describes it as Venice’s only private beach, with Blue Flag water, and a guest in June 2026 writes of falling asleep to the sound of the waves. Windsurfers, kayaks, sailing boats and paddleboards can be hired on the shore.

No price is published: the cabanas page has them booked through the hotel and leads to an enquiry form. They include sunloungers, towels and service from the beach team, with food and drink ordered from the bar. They can be rented for the whole season, and Lido residents may take them too.

2 figures give a sense of scale. The Beach Package adds a full-day cabana, in the first lateral row or the second row depending on the room, with breakfast and €60 a day in credit, €100 in suites. On the night of 15 August 2026, for the fireworks, a cabana with a bottle of prosecco cost €200.

There is one, outdoors, between the hotel and the beach and in front of the restaurant’s Moorish pavilion: loungers, umbrellas and poolside service, with room for proper lengths, says the official page. Its dimensions are not published.

It is for hotel guests only and included in the stay; loungers cannot be reserved and go to whoever arrives first. In 2026 reviews guests call it a lovely, pleasant pool.

The official site’s structured data and Booking.com both describe a large heated outdoor pool; no page states a temperature. It opens for the hotel’s season and shuts with the hotel in winter.

Hours vary by source: the pool bar serves 10:00 to 19:00, Booking.com has the pool open 09:00 to 18:00, and a guest in August 2026 reports that before 09:00 nobody could swim or claim a lounger.

The restaurants page lists 4 venues with hours. Excelsior Terrace, facing the sea: lunch 12:00 to 15:00, aperitivo 16:00 to 19:00, dinner 19:00 to 22:30. Elimar, for breakfast from 07:00 to 10:30. The Blue Bar, 10:00 to midnight. The pool bar, 10:00 to 19:00. Private dinners are arranged on request.

On the terrace’s sample menu pasta and risotto cost €32 to €45, fried lagoon seafood €41 and the beef fillet €54. The hotel’s introduction counts 5 restaurants and bars, Google 2 restaurants and 3 bars. Tables at the terrace and the Blue Bar can be booked online; guests praise the terrace and its portions.

It depends on the rate. The member’s rate, 10% off, and the autumn offer include it; other rates do not, and Expedia puts the buffet at about €36 for adults and €18 for children. It is served at Elimar, the dining room with a veranda over the beach, from 07:00 to 10:30: fruit, yoghurt, house pastries and hot dishes, for hotel guests only.

The terms give children under 2 breakfast free and those aged 3 to 12 half price. Google’s card marks breakfast “free”, which holds only for rates that include it. In the latest 500 reviews 69% of those who mention it are positive, for the buffet and the view.

No. The hotel says so plainly on its facilities page: it offers in-room treatments rather than a dedicated spa. There is no sauna, steam room or indoor pool.

Treatments cover massage and physiotherapy, hairdressing, manicure, pedicure and make-up, by appointment. For exercise there is the gym, open daily 07:00 to 21:00, morning yoga on the beach and a seasonal sports programme that is free for guests.

Not the pool: sunbeds and access are reserved for hotel guests, says the restaurants page. No day pass to a spa exists, since there is no spa.

The beach, partly: the page on things to do mentions day access and bookable cabanas, and the cabanas page welcomes local residents and seasonal holders. The price of a day is not published. For hotel guests the pool, gym and beach are included and need no booking.

The gym opens 07:00 to 21:00 every day. The pool bar serves 10:00 to 19:00. Shops in the Boutique Arcade open 09:00 to 13:00 and 15:00 to 19:00.

Water sports, treatments and sports-programme sessions should be booked ahead, above all in high summer; the pool, gym and beach need no reservation.

Massage and physiotherapy, hairdressing, manicure and pedicure, make-up: all in your room at a time you choose, says the treatments page. Couples can have a massage for 2.

There is no price list online: the page says current listings and prices come from the guest relations team. None of the sources read, Booking.com and the reviews included, quotes a rate.

Yes. A supervised kids’ programme runs on the beach from 15 June through the summer: 3 activities each day from 10:00 to 13:00 and 3 from 15:00 to 18:00, from art workshops to Venetian masks. The Sports Academy brings athletes and coaches for free clinics for ages 5 to 17 in selected weeks.

To sleep there are the Family Room, interconnecting Premium Junior Suites and 2 suites with 2 bedrooms. Booking.com lists a free cot up to age 5 and an extra bed at €65 a night for ages 6 to 11, €125 from 12. Children under 2 eat breakfast free.

The beach with its cabanas, the pool, a gym, the Palm Court, which is the Moorish courtyard of 1908 roofed over by Ignazio Gardella in the 1960s, the Blue Bar, an arcade of boutiques, gardens and 9 rooms for meetings and events.

Wi-Fi is free throughout the hotel and on the beach, the site says. On pets the site asks you to enquire, and Booking.com lists them as allowed on request, possibly for a charge.

On the offers page, read on 8 October 2026: up to 20% off for paying in full when booking, non-refundable; up to 25% for 3 nights, 28% for 5 and 30% for 7 or more, also prepaid; 10% for members, with breakfast.

Then the packages: one with a cabana, a romantic one with a 3-course dinner on the terrace and check-out at 14:00, and one for Ferragosto. The Autumn Escape, 30% off bed-and-breakfast stays from 23 September to 31 October 2026, had to be booked by 10 October.

Yes, for the reception: the weddings page offers a coordinator, flowers, the menu, rooms for guests and arrival by launch. Civil ceremonies, it adds, are arranged in Venice.

The figures depend on the layout, as the Sala Stucchi page, read on 15 October 2026, shows: 400 guests for a plated banquet and 700 for a cocktail, 560 and 950 with the Hall Carpet extension. For the Sala Stucchi, the Louis XVI-style ballroom, 700 guests on the spaces page and 400 on the meetings page; the spaces page also speaks of 500 guests indoors and 1,500 outdoors. No prices are given.

No: the hotel is closed at New Year. On Google Hotels, read on 7 October 2026, no night from 1 November to 31 January had a price, and the 2027 season starts in late April.

The big evenings are in summer. For 2026 the events page announced the Notte Bianca for the Redentore on 18 July, a dinner on the beach at €200 a head with wines, and the Mercato di Ferragosto on the terrace on 15 August, €435 a head without drinks, with fireworks over the beach.

No package or green-fee discount is published. The hotel does book tee times, transfers and equipment at Circolo Golf Venezia, 18 holes, par 72, at Alberoni on the island’s southern tip: a 20-minute drive by the hotel’s count, 8.6 km and about 16 minutes on our route.

The club was founded in 1928, the hotel relates, after Henry Ford, a guest of the Excelsior, asked where he could play.

The hotel “operates seasonally”, says its About page, without dates. For 2027 the first night we found on sale is 23 April: on 8 October 2026 Expedia had no rooms for 20 April, had them from 23 April to 25 August and again none from 1 September into October. The beach runs from late May to mid-September and the kids’ programme starts on 15 June.

For 2026 the last night listed was 31 October, by the autumn offer and Google Hotels’ calendar of 7 October. A day later, though, the official booking engine answered “We are closed” for every October night tried and for April, May and June 2027, and neither Booking.com nor Expedia had rooms for October. The hotel publishes no reopening date.

Expedia, read on 8 October 2026, for 2 adults and one night in the cheapest room, taxes and fees included: €883 on Friday 23 April 2027, €742 on Tuesday 27 April, €846 on Tuesday 18 May, €914 on Tuesday 15 June, €846 on Tuesday 13 July and €944 on Tuesday 10 August. For Wednesday 25 August the same search returned €4,613; in 2026 the Film Festival began on 2 September. Venice’s tourist tax, 4.50 euros a person a night, is paid at the hotel.

Of the sellers read on 8 October 2026 only Expedia had 2027: the official engine answered “We are closed” and Booking.com had no rooms. Google Hotels, read on 13 October 2026, showed €584–€611 for individual nights from 27 to 29 April 2027 and €594–€600 from 9 to 11 June, for 2 adults. The earlier reading of 7 October 2026 had shown €429 for 8 October 2026, €422 for the 13th, €311 for the 20th, €290 for the 26th and €383 for the 31st, with €709 on Saturday 17, €858 on Sunday 11 and €6,016 on Saturday 10, taxes and fees included; the cheapest seller on the card asked €471 for 8 October. Those October figures describe dated single nights close to the reading; the bookable runs in the current calendar start at €584. A day later the official site, Booking.com and Expedia no longer had those October nights.

On 7 October 2026 Google showed 4.5/5 from 2,297 ratings, Booking.com 8.8/10 from 677, with location at 9.6 and value for money at 8.0, Expedia 9.0/10 from 1,002 and Tripadvisor 3.9/5 from 1,407, ranking it 8th of 34 hotels on the Lido.

In the latest 500 Google reviews with text, 90% of those who discuss the location are positive. Praise goes to the beach in front of the hotel, the calm of the Lido after a day in Venice, the free launch to St Mark’s, the concierge and the breakfast buffet, in its room on the sea. Reviews also return to bar and restaurant prices, paid cabanas and rooms yet to be refurbished.

It is the most sought-after time of the year, says the hotel, which advises booking well ahead. In 2026 the Festival ran from 2 to 12 September; the Palazzo del Cinema is a 3-minute walk away, and the stars arrive at the hotel’s own dock.

The price is the loss of calm. The car park is unavailable in those days. For an undisturbed beach, choose June or July.

No. The fee, introduced in 2024, applies to day visitors on certain dates and at certain hours; overnight guests of the Excelsior are exempt however often they cross to the centre, explains the official page.

On the days it applies you still need an exemption QR code: register on the Venezia Unica portal with the hotel’s name and carry the code when you visit the historic centre.

Venice’s tourist tax, paid at the hotel: by Expedia’s listing it is 4.50 euros a person a night for adults from 1 February to 31 December and 2.20 euros for ages 10 to 16; children under 10 are exempt.

The Expedia and Google Hotels prices read for this page already include taxes and fees: in Agoda’s link for 8 October 2026 the total was 522.75 euros, 47.50 of it tax. Extra are breakfast where the rate leaves it out, cabanas, parking and transfers.

Check-in from 15:00 and check-out by noon, according to the terms. The flexible rate cancels free of charge until 14:00 3 days before arrival; after that the whole stay is charged, tax included. Prepaid rates cannot be changed or refunded.

The member’s rate and the Beach Package ask for 7 days’ notice. On arrival you present the credit card used as guarantee; Booking.com notes that the hotel takes no cash. Smoking is not allowed indoors.