We are scheduled for the Best of Italy tour in September. The itinerary concerning Venice says:
"We'll finish our morning walk in St. Mark's Square and Basilica (when available)."
For those who have been on the BOI, does it include an actual tour of the Basilica or should we purchase tickets for an actual 'skip the line' tour in advance?
Jim, which departure are you on? I'm on the Sept 30 one!
Ours starts on 8/7.
Hi Pam,
My husband and I, my sister and a neighbor are all going on the Sept 30 tour. We can’t wait and look forward to seeing you.
Barb
I bought reservations for it recently, and it’s about $6 per person.
Hello, looking forward to my own Best of Italy trip starting September 4 !
Jim, I noticed this in my itinerary section on my personal tour account on this website. You may want to check your own Itinerary section. Under "Additional information for your departure." Mine (for the Best of Italy tour departing September 4th) says:
"Due to group entrance restrictions, your group will not be able to visit the Basilica of San Marco as part of your morning walking tour on Day 6. If you wish to visit the Basilica of San Marco independently, we recommend that you book your ticket in advance before leaving the U.S. You can reserve “Skip the Line” entrance tickets via the following website: https://basilicasanmarco.skiperformance.com/en/store#/en/buy. The best time for this visit is during your free time after noon on Day 6".
I did book a tour on that website as it was the only one that I could find that started after noon that day.
Hope this helps! I'm not sure if your date includes or not, but you may want to check that section on your tour page.
Have a great trip!
@slavinmb! Whee!! Looking forward to meeting your group. There almost are never folks on the tours who are familiar with the forums.
@lisag - Thanks so much for the reminder to look at the online itinerary for our specific tours. Yes, my tour date is not going to St Marks so will get a ticket for that.
Thanks to all of you. I rechecked our itinerary and it contained the same message about not being able to visit the Basilica. I made other arrangements.
We are leaving on the BOI tour on 10/14. I totally missed this and appreciate the heads up. Which tickets are you reserving out of the 6 options?
I splurged and got the Viator 'Legendary Venice St. Mark's Basilica with Terrace Access & Doge's Palace'.
My husband, Carl, and I are also on the September 30th BOI tour. We look forward to meeting you! Elizabeth
Thank you for the suggestion Jim!
Although Jim's already booked, I just want to make a general comment about Viator. It is a 3rd party tour consolidator owned by Trip Advisor. They do not actually run the tours themselves. You can see who the actual tour provider is on the Viator site. Viator charges 20-25% to the tour company for each booking so you'll save either the tour company or yourself money by booking direct.
Jim, I've been looking at the tour of St Marks and the Doge's Palace with Walks of Italy. Is that who your tour company is as well? I booked that company also for a tour of the Borghese with an art historian the day the tour ends. I'm staying an extra day as the flights home were better on Monday than Sunday (at least that's the excuse, hahaha!).
Wow! Thanks. I will keep that in mind.
I took the Best of Italy in 2015. The tour was scheduled to go in the Basilica around 11:00 am, but the square started to flood. They postponed our visit to the Basilica till 4:00 pm.
I have provided two YouTube links to a slide show I put together of our tour. Our tour started in September as well.
I hope you enjoy the music. The Best of Italy was one of the best vacations I have been on. I highly recommend eating at The Golden View restaurant in Florence. If you go before 6:00 pm, you won’t need a reservation. I also would recommend taking the boats between the the different towns in the Cinque Terre rather than taking the crowded trains or walking. The views from the boat are very special and by taking the boat it allows you to spend more time in the towns and you have enough time to hike the trail up for a great view looking down at the towns. Kind of the best of both worlds and you are not exhausted from the hike between towns.
If you have any questions about the tour, you can PM me, but it was in 2015 that we were there.
My husband John and I are also on the 9/30 trip and we are really looking forward to it as it will be our first RS tour. We booked skip the line ticket to St Mark's Basilica for 2:00 on our Venice day.
We did Best of Italy in 2017. Since then, we've done two more RS trips with Eastern Europe starting in 4 weeks. As wonderful as our more recent trips were, Best of Italy was our favorite ! Have a wonderful time!
This will be our third following Athens and the Heart of Greece and Best of Spain. These will be hard to beat. My guess is that that they are all great. Thanks to all for the advice and comments.
I was on BOI this summer and had st marks ticket for about 2pm. Our RS guided tour ended in the square around noon, but I was able to enter st marks at that time, scanning my QRC to enter the basilica. Saved a bit of time that way… getting to/from the church and no back-tracking. Then on to your next site!
If you have a free morning in Venice, I reserved the first time of the day, and we were able to go through it last week with hardly anyone in it. I remembered several times previously, including when we went there with the Best of Italy tour, when it was full of people. The ambiance is wonderful when it’s a quiet reflective experience. The reservation was inexpensive.
The evening prayers also offer a sensory-rich experience, albeit in the side chapel. A nice respite from the busy day.
The guard makes you promise “no photos.” He said “we will check!”
