Pisa/Florence HELP

A couple of hours or so are enough to see everything. I wouldn’t bother spending a night in Pisa.
Dark in summer is after 9:30pm, but Florence has street lights and people are out in the city center till very late at night well past midnight, much like NYC near Times square.

"Nothing else there as far as I know."

I'm sure the people who live there might disagree with that sentence.
Pisa is more than just the Tower and it's immediate surroundings.
There is the river, some decent restaurants, and pleasant streets away from the Tower area.
A bit like saying there's nothing else in Paris except the Eiffel Tower.

But the significant tourist attraction is the Tower. Rivers are common along with nice restaurants.

I'll be the dissenting vote for crashing in Pisa on arrival day. Yes, there is the Tower but also the cathedral and baptistry as well as Monumental Cemetery and some other attractions. If your time in Florence is limited then yes, go directly there from Pisa but it can be really nice to get off a long international flight and be reasonably close to a hotel for dropping bags and freshening up.

You can acclimate to Italian time in Pisa as well as you can do it in Florence, and it all comes down to how much you want to do right off the plane.

Yes, let's face it, if you spend a few hours doing the tower and associated sights, that is enough for the first day. Find a nice hotel in Pisa, do the sights, have a great dinner, maybe some walks, an early night, then move on the next day. You will be better rested
the next day and ready for Florence.

Do you want to see the tower or climb it? Are you arriving in Pisa from the US or after staying in another European city? In other words are you going to be zonked or wide-awake? Consider that if you continue on the Florence on the same day, you will have to spend your time in Pisa with your luggage. If you stay overnight, you can drop your luggage at the hotel, then go sightseeing and lunching. Or you could take the bus from the airport to Florence and then daytrip to Pisa by train without your luggage.

Or you could take the bus from the airport to Florence

A side note here....

It appears that there was a recent city order diverting the Autostradale buses to-from Florence to a Pisa Mover station "700-800 meters away" versus the pick-up/drop off point right at the airport, thus trying to force use of of the fee-based Mover. It also appears to be a contentious subject, and apparently some of the buses are and some aren't getting away with using the more convenient airport stop, causing confusion. As near as I can tell, it has to do with justifying the enormous cost of building the Pisa Mover, although the city authorities - namely the mayor - are claiming environmental reasons.

Worth the mention as the Pisa airport website hasn't yet changed its info on the bus stop. There's an ongoing effort to have the order revoked.

In Italian only:
http://iltirreno.gelocal.it/pisa/cronaca/2018/05/05/news/il-bilancio-di-autostradale-il-70-dei-bus-la-fa-franca-1.16796502

http://iltirreno.gelocal.it/pisa/cronaca/2018/05/04/news/l-ordinanza-anti-bus-e-nemica-dello-sviluppo-1.16791050

I've taken that bus and would agree that that if would be less convenient not to be picked up/ dropped off right at Galileo Galilei but we'll see what happens? Editing to add: this change appears to apply to all shuttle buses from locations other than Florence as well.

The issue mentioned by Kathy is a recent development that is affecting some of the buses.
This is the story.
In 2015 the train station inside the airport was closed and replaced by a People Mover that takes (for a fee) passengers from the airport to the Pisa Central station. The mover (which is managed by a private operator) makes an intermediate stop at a large long term parking.

Before people used to take the train inside the airport terminal which would take them to Pisa Centrale and then to Florence without train transfers. It was very convenient. Now with the people mover, people have to change mode of transport and also carry the luggage from mover to train once at Pisa Centrale, so not as convenient as before, therefore people started to prefer the bus to the train, because it was just as fast and no changes required.

Because of this, the people mover is practically always empty and the company running the people mover has started to lose revenue, so their friends in the Pisa City Hall just passed an ordinance at the end of April to come to the Pisamover’s rescue. The ordinance requires the buses to load and drop passengers at the Long Term parking lot (the mover’s intermediate stop) so that now also the bus users must use the people mover (and pay for it). Both the bus company and the airport managing company have raised a fuss since this is clearly a move to favor a company (the people mover) over another (the bus companies). The city has cited environmental reasons for this move, however the city buses are exempt from the ordinance, only the private buses coming from Florence must comply. You can always count on politicians being corrupt.

You can always count on politicians being corrupt.

Why don't you check before writing such cliches?

To get the People Mover built for free, the City of Pisa agreed to cover any losses for many years. They are not "friends" with anybody, they just overestimated the revenues from the parking and thought that the 830,000 € given by the Region each year would have been enough to cover any losses.

They are trying to save taxpayers money blocking private buses. Stupid politicians, but not corrupt.

Incidentally, the Region financed the Pisa Mover with EU funds aimed to reduce pollution from private cars and buses.

Dario, do you know if that situation has changed and so private coaches are allowed to direct access to the airport again? Or are they still operating from the People Mover location? The Pisa airport bus info page is still directing travelers to a pickup/dropoff point near the terminal.