Going to Positano and staying at the Residence Venus-Inn was the highlight of our Italian adventure. And "hats off" to Gippy. He welcomed us with his warm and wonderful Italian hospitality and even spoke some English, which made us feel right at home. Our room was neat and clean; our balcony overlooked Positano. We enjoyed several meals on the balcony. It was so romantic; everything and more to fill your wildest expectations. There was even a kitchenette in the room, but we never used it. If we didn't go out for meals, we bought items at the local market and brought them home to enjoy after a tiring day of site seeing on foot. Positano is centrally located, which allowed us to make day trips by ferry to Amalfi one day and Capri the next. We could have also gone to Sorrento or Naples, but ran out of time. We'd go back in a heart beat and stay at the Residence Venus-Inn. It was magnificent.
Try it. You'll love it! Ciao!!
Ed & Pet Pittman

A traveller's worst nightmare: we arrived in Positano only to discover that the owner, Gippy, had given away our room to another couple that had turned up earlier in the day without a confirmed booking (they'd apparently emailed him to arrange their stay but had never provided credit card details to complete the booking). He apologised, but his initial explanation was that he had simply thought they were us - which is very odd, given that you need to provide passport identification for check-in. However, after many other conversations with Gippy, it became clear that the real reason this other couple had not been turned away or offered alternative accommodation was because they had enquired with him directly and he was not obliged to pay any commission on their stay (in contrast, we had booked on Venere.com and it appears this incurs a per night fee back to the agency). Basically, Gippy was going to make more money by giving the other couple our room.

Instead, we were taken to a different "property" (a level of Gippy's house which he rents out for holiday stays) which had a wonderful view but was on a major road, was much further away from the water and restaurants, and was not at all what we had been looking forward to (neither of us wanted to shower there because it was so uninviting). However, because we'd booked 3 nights in Positano and this 'apartment' was being rented out by others before we were due to leave, we had to then choose between transferring back to the Venus Inn after a night or two - to the only available room without a view - or moving downstairs to his mother's house and staying in Gippy's old room (his mum was out of town at the time). We asked if we were going to be charged the same amount as our original booking at the Venus Inn (110 euros per night) and were told 'yes'. Apparently there was nothing he could do. Again, very odd given that he now had someone in the room we'd originally booked AND us in his empty apartment paying $110 euros (I'm sure it doesn't cost that much for a cleaner to change a set of sheets and retouch a bathroom after one night of people barely touching anything?). It looked like double the income to us.

WOW. It was a disaster. We spent our first day in Positano trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do (we tried to find another hotel but it's impossible at that time of year) and finally told Gippy we'd spend the night in the 'apartment' but would take the room without a view at the Venus Inn the next day so we could just get on with our holiday. Again, we asked would there be any sort of discount given the inconvenience and change of room, etc? 'No, it's impossible'. We asked if we could at least have some help moving to the Venus the next day and were told to take a the local bus with all our bags (we had a lot of luggage thanks to a long trip and multiple climates). If you've seen the local bus service in Positano on a busy day, you'll know that this would be a total nightmare. It was only after we expressed to him how shocked we were with the position we were being put in - at no fault of our own - that he suddenly remembered he had a car he could use to help us move the following day. BIZARRE. Gippy is very friendly and chats away with you for ages, but it was clear to us that all was not as it seemed. You'd think he'd be bending over backwards to put right his crazy 'mistake', but instead we were having to beg for help and compensation!

In a nutshell: we spent a sleepless night at the apartment (the traffic noise was terrible), we moved to the Venus for our remaining two nights; it seems Gippy relocated yet another couple to a different room so we could see a sliver of water from ours (goodness knows how they felt about that!); we couldn't figure out what all the rave reviews were about (after all the palava in getting there, we found ourselves completely underwhelmed by the Venus...no hand soap to be found, a grotty shower curtain, no water pressure, no sign of the cheap breakfast on the terrace...); we finally spent two lovely days at the small beach trying not to think about how we'd been messed around, and checked out with a 30 euro discount for our troubles.