I leave for Venice in less than 3 weeks. Is it better to just go ahead and pre-book the water taxi or is it just as easy to get one there without reserving in advance? I figured if I go ahead and pre-book, I can be assured I'll have one waiting for us when we arrive. What are your thoughts? We arrive on a Sunday morning at 11am.
Thank you!
I think they are always there waiting....especially during normal hours. If you prebook you'll have to take your voucher to a place either at the Airport or at Pzl Roma or at the St. Lucia train station to exchange your voucher for a "real" document which you'll then give to the taxi driver. Venice has plenty of water taxis so I doubt you'll have a problem.
We just paid for ours when we arrived at the Venice airport. There were plenty of them available and waiting to take us to our hotel.
Thank you both, Stephen and Tim. Glad to hear, I can just get a taxi easily there.
Can we pay by credit card or do we need cash?
We booked our transfers via https://www.motoscafivenezia.it/eng/biglietto_1.php and found them very reliable. If you book them in advance with a return there is a discount. Also, you may catch them when the transfers are on sale (we got an additional 5% off). If you book online, you get vouchers to print out and you just give the voucher to the captain. As our hotel had its own dock we got dock-to-dock service. Total trip was about 30 minutes max.
(When we were researching this, others have reported poor service with VeniceLinks.)
Just a thought...we arrived at the Venice airport early last September....we didn't reserve a water taxi as we had heard that there would be quite a few at the dock. Please check that Venice isn't hosting a large festival of any type at the time you are arriving....every water taxi (in the city, I think!) was reserved for people arriving for the Venice Film Festival and Regatta Storica. We were lucky to find a water taxi to share after about an hour. Again, that was September, but I'd still check. Enjoy! The water taxi is the most wonderful way to arrive!
Most accept credit cards. Just verify with the driver BEFORE you get on board.
Tim- thanks!
Don- thanks you for the link!
Cathy- thanks for the advice. Good to know!
The last several times we have flown into Marco Polo, most recentlly in 2013, we just went to the water taxi counter, paid by C.C. & given a voucher. It is a short hike to the water taxis via a covered walkway.
following.. had the same question. Thank you!!
Janet is right. You pay at a counter inside the airport before exiting the airport. Don't make the mistake we did; we hiked all the way out to the dock and discovered we couldn't pay there (nor pay the driver directly). You can only pay inside the terminal and as Janet said, you will be given a voucher which you then present at the dock. The dock is a bit of a hike from the airport terminal and once at the dock, there was a bit of a wait (in August) but not too bad.
We also used a private water taxi to get from our hotel to Piazzale Roma which was a nice convenience and in that situation we did pay the driver directly but coming from the airport you must pay inside the terminal at a counter and I seem to remember being able to pay with a credit card and then I tipped the driver with cash.
