Train questions for Venice/ Florence Trip + Munich Airport and Air Dolomiti

You will take the No 15 bus from the airport to Venezia Mestre station. It goes every 30 minutes Mo-Sa at 15 and 45 past the hour, every hour on Sunday at 50 past the hour. Takes about 23 minutes. There is also an ATVO bus that does it express in 17 minutes.

There is a Trenitalia desk at Mestre station. I don't think Italo has a desk there, perhaps just a ticket machine. Trenitalia has more trains, but Italo may be the the next available train when you happen to arrive. Check the departure board at the station when you get there.

Your bags should be checked through to your final destination. I really have never heard of having to retrieve your bags at a European connecting airport unless you are traveling on completely independent tickets, where they will not interline the bags. You will have to go through immigration at Munich airport to get your Schengen entry stamp.

Air Dolomiti (code shares with Lufthansa) uses Embraer RJ 195 on this route. 30 rows with 2 seats on each side of the aisle. Seat Expert says only the last row (31, no row 13 for the superstitious) is to be avoided. It is only a 1 hour flight. Flights normally land heading to the Northeast against prevailing winds, so the window seats on the right hand side get a nice view of Venice in good weather. Left hand window view looks like New Jersey.

@ Sam thanks for the seating tips. Regarding the train, do you know if there is an app or some way when I arrive at Menstre that I can check on train times and prices and purchase through my phone? Also to clarify in Frankfurt, we had no checked bags. We had to take our carry-ons back through the x-ray machine when we disembarked before entering the terminal and an additional line for passport control. They were very long lines.

As Sam said, there is NO Train service from Marco Polo airport. You need to take a bus to Venezia Mestre station. You won't want to buy a train ticket in advance, because you can't be sure when you will arrive at the train station. The price will be what the price will be- the regular price. No supersaver for you, sorry. As Sam said, look at the departure board, then purchase a ticket for the next train to Firenza SMN. That will either be from a ticket machine or a kiosk/customer desk.

Again, for your departure from Venice, you won't be using the train station - there is no train service to the airport. The cheapest will be a bus from Piazzale Roma. Buy the ticket (€8) at the ATVO storefront, the ticket machine outside, or the newstand near the bus stop. VALIDATE the ticket in the machine behind the driver's seat. The trip takes about 20 minutes. You'll want to arrive 2 hours before your flight, since it's an intraEuropean flight. So depending on how far you are from PR, you might have to leave the hotel around 6-6:30.

Or you could take a taxi from Piazzale Roma to the airport.

That connecting flight outbound in Munich looks really tight, because you'll have to go through passport (exit) control. It's not nearly as big as Frankfurt, though.

We flew Air Dolomiti as a connecting flight with Lufthansa. From what I understand, seats can only be booked on their flights 24 hrs in advance.

Italo Treno App
https://www.italotreno.it/en/support-contacts/sales-channels#app

Trenitalia App
http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en/Purchase/Mobile-Ticketing

If you only have a 40 minute connection on your flight home due to the airline changing departure times, call them immediately and request another flight. With the triple security now in place, there is no way you're going to make it.

What is meant by 'triple security'?

Lastly, has anyone ever flown Air Dolomiti? I can't seem to reserve seats for our flight. I wanted to try to get seats as close to the front of the plane as possible so we could maximize our terminal time

I’ve flown them several time. They are actually a regional subsidiary of Lufthansa. I’ve found their planes, seats and service to be a little nicer than Lufthansa Cityline regional planes. As for seating, will likely have to take a bus from the plane to the terminal in Munich so a seat up front won’t save you any time in that case.

A 40 min layover is tight but would be ok for transfer to another Schengen area flight. For transfer to an international flight it doesn’t seem correct, I would call the airline in this case.

DJ

40 minutes is the minimum connection time for a domestic-international connection at Munich airport. You will not see your luggage in Munich, but, and I am assuming you are flying non-stop to the US from Munich, there will be a security screening (not sure what was meant by "triple screening" either.) This isn't the full screening like you go through before your first flight, but just some additional questions from security personnel. Unless you say something or behave in some way (or get "randomly selected for additional screening") this does not take long. I had a similar itinerary in October (VCE-MUC-IAH), but had 2 hours in Munich, which was plenty of time. 40 minutes would have been tight, but I probably would have just made it. Munich airport does pride itself on making tight connections possible, but if you're inbound to Munich is even a little late, you'll miss your next flight. If you want to read incredibly detailed information/feedback/experiences on connection in Munich, have a look at this FlyerTalk thread. If it were me, and despite the connection being right on the "legal" limit, I would call the airline, explain that I just wasn't comfortable with that short of a connection and hopefully you'll have a sympathetic agent. If this 40 minute connection is due to a schedule change after you booked the ticket, all the better. If you booked it with this connection, you will probably find less sympathy.

I have flown Air Dolomiti a few times, and have never had a negative experience with them. As previously noted, the seating might not matter, as Air Dolomiti flights often use buses to get you from the plane to the terminal. Without knowing with whom and how (money or miles) you booked the ticket and what the flight numbers are (Air Dolomiti native numbers or, say, a United codeshare) cannot help you with perhaps being able to reserve seats with them.