Setting up a Water Taxi into Venice from San Marco Airport

Are you flying directly in from North America? If you have a connection prior in the Schengen zone, customs is nothing, just walking out the "nothing to declare" door. You will already have passed through Schengen immigration at your connecting airport. If connecting in London, you will have to go through Schengen immigration in Venice.

For pre-purchased water taxi, you give them your flight number and arrival time, so they will know if it is late. There are always available water taxis at the airport dock. I don't think you will have any problems.

With 2 people, I normally use the No 5 bus to Piazzale Roma, and buy a vaporetto pass with the bus added onto the pass for 6 EUR. Takes a little longer, but is a whole lot cheaper. I've only used water taxis on group trips where we could put 7 to 8 people in a taxi and the cost averaged out to same as an ACTV or Alilaguna transfer.

We did a shared water taxi into Venice, and we did not book ahead. We decided to just scope it all out when we landed. We found a water taxi stand within the airport, inquired, paid (much less expensive than booking a private one for just the two of us). We waited until the coordinator had a full load (I think it was a total of 7 of us), and then we walked to the dock and took off. I think I recall it was about 45 minutes total until we went off as a group. It was fun chatting a bit with the other passengers, two from Canada and three from Germany.

The experience was incredible, and truly a memory we will have for life. The look on my husband's face as we approached Venice was priceless, then going up the little canals (driver warning us to duck when we went under some bridges) was so lovely and unique.

We were so thrilled we chose the water taxi over the water bus thing, which would not have offered the same views.

We later took the Vaparetto (sp?) on the main loop of Venice (as was suggested in the Rick Steves' guide), also waiting to catch a seat in front of the wheelhouse (as his guidebook suggests), and it was also a fun experience where we saw a lot of Venice from a different view.

I agree. You do not need to book ahead. There are quite a few private water taxis in the dock area of the airport. We took the Alliguna boat and waited in a line forever until we got on a boat. Then we sat low in the water with filthy windows which afforded a very poor view as we approached Venice. I wish we had joined a small group in a water taxi.

Last Sept my daughter and I arrived in Venice two days in advance of our Italy My Way tour, and did not make a reservation in advance for a water taxi. We just followed the signs at the airport to the counter for the private water taxi and booked one that took us to the closest stop to our hotel. Very easy and a lovely boat ride as an intro to Venice.