Rome to Venezia Mestre by train

Hi Pattie. I'm a little confused because you say 'I tried to book with trenitalia/RailEurope'. Trenitalia and Rail Europe are two different sites. Anyway, if you book two seats using trenitalia.com, it should work fine. There is a way to select seats if you want, but I wouldn't even worry about that. Your seats will probably be together anyway (note seat #s aren't consecutive, i.e. 58 & 60 are adjacent). If not, just move to empty seats, or ask somebody to trade; people will be glad to trade to let you sit together, and it will be an excuse to interact. Enjoy your trip!

Pattie, when is your trip? I hope it is wonderfully memorable, for all the right reasons. If you buy your tickets early enough on either Trenitalia (the main state owned Italian train company) or .Italo (the new upstart private company with the very fast, very modern dark red pointy trains) you can get very cheap €19 fares or even better so you don't have to worry about senior fares. They won't seat you at opposite ends of the train, really. It is a shame to miss out on the magic of Venice at dawn and sunset by being in Mestre. Is there any chance you could move to a hotel on the islands where you could get out and walk rather than commuting in? We go to Venice regularly and sometimes now we stay out of Venice and run in but we have always have a much better experience when staying in the islands. Rail Europe doesn't generally sit well with most folk here because they only show a few trains, the ones that they resell at a higher price, not the full gamut. Much better to stick with the "horse's mouth". If you have troubles doing it there are many of us here who have plenty of experience and who can help.

Don't use RailEurope and don't stay in Mestre.

Yep. What Tim said. We've been to Venice three times. The third time we decided NOT to stay in Venice proper to save some money. Regretted it every single day.

Pattie, I tend to agree with the others about staying in Mestre. Is there a particular reason you chose that location? I wouldn't be too concerned about the "senior price". If you can manage to get the cheaper fares, there won't be any additional discount for being a senior. You may have better luck booking two seats by using the new Italo trains, with a departure from Roma Tiburtina and arrival at Venezia Mestre. I haven't tried it yet, but I've been told the website is somewhat more "user friendly" than the Trenitalia website. Given your location, you might find it very helpful to attend the next meeting of the RS Denver HelpLine group (usually the third Saturday of the month at a local Panera Bread outlet). I'm sure the helpful group there would be able to give you some good advice in sorting out the details. Happy travels!

Check ItaloTreno as well... the new Trenitalia competitor.

Mestre is to Venice what the oil refineries are to northern New Jersey - nasty places where you do NOT want to stay!