JW Marriott Venice Resort & Spa

The Hotel

Isola delle Rose — historically known as Sacca Sessola, "the largest private island in the Venice lagoon" — was created artificially in 1860 from material excavated to deepen the Stazione Marittima. The island was used as a tuberculosis sanatorium from 1914 through the 1980s, then sat abandoned for over twenty years before Marriott International took it over in 2009. After a comprehensive seven-year restoration the property opened as the JW Marriott Venice Resort & Spa in February 2015 — the only true resort property within the Venice city limits and the largest hospitality investment in the lagoon since the Cipriani's expansion onto Giudecca in the 1950s. Mexican architect Matteo Thun led the restoration, retaining the Hospital Building's original stone-and-brick massing while adding three new low-rise wings (the Residenze) integrated with the orchards and aromatic gardens.

The 266 keys split between the main building (JW Rooms in the restored hospital, with original parquet and double-height ceilings preserved in the upper-floor categories) and the JW Retreats — standalone garden suites set in the private orchards with terraces, the larger ones with private gardens. Categories ascend through Deluxe Garden View, Deluxe Lagoon View, JW Retreats (one- and two-bedroom), and the named Presidential and Penthouse Suites in the main building's top-floor corner positions with terraces overlooking the basin and the campanile of San Marco. Every category includes free Wi-Fi, premium bedding, and Marriott's JW signature programming; Marriott Bonvoy elite-status amenities apply throughout.

The defining facility is the rooftop infinity pool — the only major hotel pool in Venice with a frontal view of the city — paired with the GOCO Spa (the largest hotel spa in Venice at over 1,750 square metres, with eight treatment rooms, a hammam, a salt-water flotation pool, and a vitality lap pool). The resort runs five restaurants: Dopolavoro Dining Room (1 Michelin star) for fine dining; Cucina at the gardens for Italian classics; Sapori Cooking Academy for the daily cooking class; the Pool Bar at the rooftop; and the Lobby Bar for aperitivo. The kitchen draws from the resort's own organic vineyard and three-hectare aromatic garden — one of the few hotel kitchens in Italy with a working farm-to-table programme of meaningful scale.

The proposition is the resort experience that Venice itself cannot provide. Within the historic city, hotels are necessarily compressed into palazzo footprints; on Isola delle Rose, JW Marriott runs a programme that includes tennis, jogging through the orchards, the working organic vineyard tour, the gardens-to-spa wellness programmes, and the kind of children's club programming that parents need for the multi-generational Venice trip. The complimentary launch service runs every 20 minutes (every 30 minutes off-season) between 7 AM and 1 AM, with the Piazza San Marco arrival at the JW Marriott private mooring at the foot of the Riva degli Schiavoni — a 10-minute crossing that places guests two minutes from the basilica. The resort is the right answer for the Venice trip with families, for honeymoons that want both the city and a proper hotel, and for any traveller for whom a working pool, a real spa, and orchards-to-walk-in are non-negotiable.

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