I wanted to stay at one hotel in Vegas with my mom between 03 Jan and 07 Jan.

Surfed around on the internet and someone has suggested that if you go to Priceline and bid only for 5-star hotels on the North side of the Strip, you'll be bidding for the Venetian, the Palazzo, or the Trump. I bid $75/nt and got a counteroffer of $99. I took it. Sure enough, it was the Venetian. After taxes and fees it came out to about $109/nt.

I went up to the front desk and did the "$20 trick" (google it or search for it on Flyertalk) except I used a $50 bill and I got upgraded from the standard 1-king luxury suite to the 2-queen bella suite (basically, the room has the same dimensions, but with 2 big beds instead of one.

Pros: Lobby was beautiful, that's a fact. Huge fountain, amazing ceiling artwork. "Shoppes at the Venetian" was a good mall experience, and the canal was cool. Room was great, 1 bedroom + 1 sunken living room. 3 plasma TV's in all, one in the bathroom. Soaking tub and separate shower. All marble bathroom. Very nice beds. A lot of space in a Bella Suite for 3-4 people.

Cons: Mattresses were a bit hard for my taste. And because I booked on Priceline, I think that gave the front desk the right to send me to the farthest room possible on the 14th floor (it was OK, I didn't mind). There was no smell in the hotel room, but the biggest con to the whole Venetian experience was the lavender smell in the lobby and casino areas.

I had read about 'the smell' here on tripadvisor and I thought people were exaggerating or had sensitive noses. In actuality, it smelled very strongly. So strong, in fact, that it was very difficult for me to take entire deep breaths of air in there.

The lobby and casino at the neighboring Palazzo, a short distance away in the same indoor complex, has no such smell.

There is a pretty good food court on the 2nd floor of the Venetian side. Wasabi Jane's had a pretty good beef noodle soup for $9.

Bottom line: Stay in the Palazzo to gamble, retire to your Venetian room to relax. That's what I'll likely do next time.

Stayed here 25th dec for 7 nights. Booked direct and got a great deal considering it was Christmas/New year week.
Taxi from airport cost $23. (cheaper on return journey).
Check in took 30 minutes but we had to wait 1 hour for bags to arrive at our room.
Fantastic room.Only complaints would be doors close very loudly and turn down service only provided 4 out of 7 nights.
Location is very central for the rest of the strip.Mini bar very expensive and sensored so you will be charged if you move things around.$5 for water in the hotel shop is the cheapest we found!
Drinks service in the casino was very slow as with most of the casinos during our stay, probably due to staff cutbacks!
Overall we got the feeling that the hotel was 4.5 stars and not quite up there with Wynn or Encore.
However we would return if the room rate was at a similar price.

Spent 4 nights in Venetian during Christmas. Due to flight delay, we checked in Dec 24 around midnight. It wasn’t busy by that time of course. Our luggages were delivered to our room in about 20 mins.

There were 4 of us and we booked 2 rooms. Just booked through hotel website in a very good deal, which incl $50 slot money per room per night, and $50 drinks voucher at LAVO club at Palazzo. The 2 rooms looked exactly the same. Rooms were all very clean and big. Bathroom was spacious too. Since we had 2 rooms, we realized that sewing kit in our room was always missing! Even we wrote a note to cleaning team to ask for a shower cap (with tips of course), we never got it... We had 2 robes in our bathroom, the other room only had 1! It would be nice if staff can pay more attention to details on replenishment.

Location for the hotel is really good. Underground walking to Palazzo, which has a shopping mall with good boutiques, and Barney’s! The Chinese restaurant called Zing in Palazzo casino level turned out to be good. Nice decor and good service! Food taste good, authentic and in reasonable price (Las Vegas standard...). We had another meal at the Canal Shops level called Enoteca San Marco (by Mario Baltali)..., which turned to be THE WORSE MEAL OF OUR TRIP! Pasta was VERY SALTY and pizza just very average. I would avoid all these celebrities’ restaurants in the future.

Overall a very pleasant stay. Will definitely go back to this hotel but also want to try Palazzo too.

Our stay at the Venetian was absolutely brilliant. The hotel amenities, service, location etc were top class. The room we had booked was excactly as we had seen in brochures and on the website. The hotel was so large I often got lost when trying to navigate my way from the lobby to our room. Service from hotel staff was exceptional and the hotel itself was in pristine condition. We visited many of the other hotels located along the strip and are confident that the Venetian is the best hotel on the strip. Is ideal for couples or mature travellers looking for a classy hotel. It does not have the riff raff hanging around the hotel like so many others do along the strip. Would highly recommend this hotel for anyone looking to have an enjoyable stay in Vegas.