Rome to Venice. Book ahead?

"My travel agent suggest..." Has your travel agent ever been to Rome or Venice or even Italy? That might be a good question to ask. Rome to Venice is a popular route so there are many trains per day. Did you check on the official Italain Train site

http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html

for the price of the train ticket on the date of your travel? At least you can get a comparison to see if your $100 is reasonable.

Are you staying on Venice Island or in Mestre? That makes a difference as to which train station you will want to purchase your ticket.

Mestre = Venezia Mestre Train Station
Venice Island = Venezia San Lucia Train Station

Your train trip will probably originate from Roma Termini station.

I checked that site and it turns out for four 2nd class tickets the total is 293 euros. From what I've read it's probably a good idea to purchase tickets in advance to guarantee a seat right?

Bob, you'll need to reserve a seat for it to be guaranteed. Time of day, day of the week, etc. make a difference in availability.Buying the ticket just means you have a ticket on the train, not a seat.

You cannot book in advance on the Trenitalia site because the site does not accept US credit cards. I assume you'll be in Rome for a few days before you go to Venice. Buy your tickets when you first get to Rome. Unless you will be traveling on a major holiday, you will have no trouble getting tickets for the departure time of your choice. The station ticket machines have an English option and they do accept US credit cards.

For trains that require reservations (like EuroStar Italia trains running between Rome and Venice) the seat reservation comes with the ticket and is included in the price of the ticket. For high-speed ES trains the 2nd class fare is €73.00, but for IC trains it is €42.50.

You say the cost would be $100 for 2nd class, but as has been pointed out, there are also different class of trains. The Italian Eurostar AV trains go from Rome to Venice in under 4 hours, for €73 (about $88 at todays exch rate). So you would be paying about $12 to have the ticket in hand when you arrived. You might think that is worth it.

However, there are also ICs that make the trip in about 6 hours for €42,50 ($52). If that's the kind of train you would be ticketed on, tell her to pound salt. Wait until you get to Rome.

Well we do want to spend as less time on the train as possible so I guess we'll go for the high speed train.
Thanks all.
As far as I know there is nothing special about the time we'll be there. The 2nd & 3rd of August.

This thread has been really helpful. I also checked the date when I'll be traveling by train from Rome to Venice (July 4th, Sunday)and as far as I can tell, it's just a regular weekend, unless I've missed an Italian festa or sagra that only an Italian would know about? Grazie mille.