Customs/Immigration in Paris/Venice/Rome

When you land in Paris you will go through Passport/Immigration.
2 hours should be enough.
If your flight from Venice to Rome is a separate ticket you will retrieve your luggage in Venice and go through customs.
If not and this is all one ticket requiring two connections one in Paris and then other in Venice you will go through customs in Rome not Passport Control or Immigration.

Separate ticket from Venice to Rome with different airline. We wii have to go thru customs/immigration/ passport check when we land at our final destination - Rome?

Once you land in Paris and go through immigration you are in the Schengen zone. You will go through customs but that is not a big deal in Venice. The flight to Rome is a domestic fight - no immigration or customs. You could jump a water taxi and spend an hour, no more, in Venice and return via water taxi. That will be very expensive for a one hour peak. Of course, that assumes everyone is on time. Schedule tend to fall apart towards the end of the day. I would not do it. You still have to return and go through security to reach your Rome gate.

Not sure why you would fly to Venice and then fly to Rome. Doesn't make a lot of travel sense. Should have flown to Rome directly.

Separate ticket from Venice to Rome with different airline. We wii have to go thru customs/immigration/ passport check when we land at our final destination - Rome?

No. You will have gone through passport control in Paris. You get stamped as entering the European Schengen Zone.

(FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area)

So the flights Paris to Venice and Venice to Rome are like domestic flights sort of like going to Chicago to New York.

Customs to be exact is separate from passport control immigration; it is after you retrieve your baggage from the carousel.
Americans commonly lump passport control and customs together but it is not the same thing.

Flights were booked months ago and it was cheaper (by a $100’s of dollars per ticket) to fly to Venice and book a domestic flight to Rome. Got it —- Passport control in Paris. Immigration in Venice.
Not enough time and very expensive to go into the city of Venice during the lay over. We’re spending 4 days in Rome and will be returning to Venice by train for site seeing and a cruise.
Thanks everyone.

"Passport control in Paris. Immigration in Venice." - NO NO NO!
Passport control and immigration are the same thing. It is the check on people, whether you are allowed into the Schengen Area. You go thorough it at the first place you land in the Schengen Area, which in your case is Paris. It will take anything from 30 to 90 minutes.

I am a bit confused. Are you saying you have THREE flights?
1) US to Paris Air France
2) Paris to Venice Air France
3) Venice to Rome Alitalia.
Important question - Is this all one through ticket, or separate?
i.e. will your bags be checked through all the way to Rome, or will you have to collect them in Venice and check in again for the Venice - Rome flight?

Customs is the check on goods, that is the contents of your cases. it cannot possibly happen until you get your bags back, so it may happen in Venice or Rome, depending on the answer to the previous question (where you get your bags back).
However, customs is a random check only 95%+ are not stopped, so it takes zero time.

JT, you also seem to be confusing "passport control" with security checks of your passport. The security people can ask to see your passport for identification purposes at multiple locations. That is different from immigration which is where you are checked to see if you are legally allowed to enter the country.

There is a great lounge at the Venice airport called the Marco Polo Club. I got in using my Priority Pass card last October. It has lots of space and different food / drink options.

Also, I found that the Venice airport is very easy to get in and out of. When our flight landed from the US, we simply had to scan our passport in, then look into a screen that I assume was matching the picture on our passport. This took less than 1 minute, then we were free to roam Italy.

Getting through customs/immigration in Venice was reasonably quick-I think 1/2 hour to pass through and collect luggage, but security for our flight home took 1.5 hours (Sunday morning September 2017). I don't think I'd be comfortable to risk it for a quick trip into Venice.

Although four hours sounds like a lot, if you leave the airport, you will have to go through security again to get back in. You never know how long that will take. Some days are fine, but the last time I was there it took over two hours to get our boarding passes and clear security, and we barely made our flight! Our friends, who left Venice a couple of days later, breezed right through.

Americans commonly lump passport control and customs together but it is not the same thing.

I think that's because when we return to the US, it all happens together.

If one arrives LAX -> CDG Terminal 1 and connecting flight leaves CDG -> VCE from Terminal 2D; is one able to manage the terminal transfer staying in the Transfer Zone so as to not have go pass through customs?

OR, in the alternative as the layover between flights is 3.5 hrs. - as long as I have to go through immigration/passport control - it appears I will have plenty of time on my hands; if I were to go through customs @ CDG would the case be that I am now cleared for both immigration and customs upon arrival in VCE and can immediatly get to the Alilaguna to get to my hotel?

Also, I will have nothing to declare if that makes any difference to the advice which may be given ... I just want to knock off as much red tape delay as possible to getting to my hotel in Venice and then off to explore!

Thanks for any advice in this regard!

gkunzelman -- welcome! As a friendly heads-up, in general on this board, it's better to start your own question than to tag on others' questions, since people don't expect to see other people's questions in a pre-existing thread.

As to your actual question -- on a LAX-CDG-VCE itinerary, you must pass through Schengen passport control/immigration checks at CDG (regardless of terminal) because a CDG-VCE flight is entirely within the Schengen area. You will also have to go through a security re-screening at CDG, because CDG requires all connecting passengers coming from a non-Schengen destination (like the USA) to be re-screened before their next flight.

When you land in VCE you will go through customs, but that will just be a walk through a hallway after baggage claim, barring any extraordinary situation. There is no passport control on this flight because it's a "domestic" Schengen flight.