Staying at a B&B/Hotel in Venice

You can park in Venice in two parking structures. We used the Tronchetto, the first one after you cross the bridge into Venice. It was 20E/day. There's a vaporetto (water bus) stop right there for the main line that goes to the train station, Rialto and San Marco.

Parking at the Tronchetto with luggage creates no more difficulty than arriving by train. Either way, you'll need to get on and off a vaporetto and then walk to your hotel. The vaporetti can be crowded but everyone's used to it. You'll have to carry your luggage on board and stand somewhere out of the way with it until your stop, where you'll have to carry it off and then cross cobblestone streets and possibly some stair-stepped bridges to your hotel. All of this is to emphasize that, when you travel to Venice, you should travel light.

You can park for less cost in Mestre, on the mainland. From there you'll need to take a train. Same deal, concerning how much luggage to take.

Try to time your arrival outside of "rush" hour. We arrived in the evening and the Vaperetto was not that crowded. This is also a time when you will be glad if you are traveling light. I guess they have the right to charge for luggage if you are "overlodaded"- we have never had that happen. We have always parked in Mestre to save money. You get off at the first or second Mestre exit and follow the signs to the train station. There is a large parking multi story parking garage across the street from the train station that is quite a bit cheaper than anything in Venice. Then you catch a train (about 1 euro per person) into Venice. Trains are quite frequent and the savings is about 1/2 of what we would have paid in Venice (and that was with 4 people taking the train round trip) There are some open air car lots you can use as well- they are cheaper still, but the one we used in 2003 required us to leave our car key and let them park and move our car around as they needed to. My husband did not like that (it was a rental and we were responsible for damage) so we paid a little extra and used the multi story lot in 2008. (you park it and take keys with you) Have a great trip.

Just to clarify, once you drive across the bridge to Venice Island there are large multi-story parking garages. You are now on Venice Island. You don't take the waterbus (vaporetto) "over to Venice" because you ARE in Venice at that point.

Some hotels are located very very close to the parking garages and you could theoretically not have to use a vaporetto if you are in one of the hotels within walking distance.

Also you could "theoretically" walk with your luggage from the parking garage to hotels all over the island without having to take the vaporetto - but you would be very very exhausted.

There are also water-taxis which you could use instead of the vaporettos. Water taxis are private boats and very expensive. Vaporettos are the "public buses of Venice"...so they are cheaper and therefore can be PACKED with people.

If you will be using a vaporetto for transportation to your Venice hotel during prime time, a few more suggestions. Know at which stop you will board, know at which stop you will exit, and have an idea of how many stops in-between. Also, some vaporettos going in opposite directions share a stop, and you'll need to look at the direction the boat is facing. And, some vaporettos make all the stops, while others skip some of the stops. Armed with this knowledge, board your vaporetto and move away from the entrance/exit area, so you don't block other people. As your stop approaches, move closer to the exit.

Matt
Is Venice your last stop? If so have you considered turning your rental car in before hitting Venice. We had no problem with luggage on the Vaporettos. But everyone is correct, plan to arrive in Venice either very early in the morning before 8am or after 5/6pm. You will miss the majority of the tourists and have an easier time getting into the city. Contact your hotel in Venice if you are going to arrive earlier than the posted check-in time. In July we are going to arrive about 5 hours before the check-in time of 2pm, and our hotel have already said they can store our luggage until 2 so we can do some site seeing before then, without a lot of baggage.
Mer

In planning our stay in Venice, the whole luggage issue was a deciding factor in picking our hotel's location. Our flight out was too early for the boats to the airport. So we stayed at Hotel Guerrini.
http://guerrini.hotelinvenice.com/location.html?source=-hotel+gerrinni+venice

This turned out to be the perfect location. And you can always find your way back to the hotel by following the signs for the train station.