Dejais

I am prebooking tickets to the Doge's Palace and the Secret Itineraries Tour. Can someone help me with how much time to allow for each?

We tend to move pretty quickly through tours like this which is to say I don't think we will need to accomodate a lot of "lingering".

Thank you for your help.

elaine

The Secret Itinerary tour will be at the guide's pace, not yours
I honestly can't remember how long it took, about an hour? Maybe a bit more.
To see the rest of the Place, I can't see getting out of there without spending at least another 90 minutes if you really want to see the rooms
Sometimes they can be quite crowded.
There is an audio guide which helps a lot.

dcd

The Secret Itinerary tour lasted about 75 minutes. At the end of that tour, the guide dismissed us and we were free to see the rest of the Palace on our own. A separate ticket was not required. We might have spent another 45-60 minutes wandering around without much "lingering". One note of caution. Purchasing the Secret Itinerary tickets is a little tricky if you've not done it before. If interested, you can click on my initials for my trip report describing our experience. Have a great trip!

Dave

Dejais

Thanks Dave. I will check your posts later today. Just wanted to say I was going to book the Secret Itineraries and they asked for a time. Then there was also a place to book the Doges Palace. You needed to select a time for that as well. I think the total cost for both for two people with the audio guide was around 25E (9 of that was for purchasing on the web).

Are you both saying that I need only book the Secret Itineraries Tour?

I was only doing this so we would not have to wait on line. Not sure what to expect in the way of crowds at this time of year.

Dejais

Also, I was not meaning to imply that we would RUN through the whole thing. *laugh* I was unsure of whether this was an hour or five.

You have both given me a good idea now. Thank you.

DeeDee

Dejais,

You only need to book the Secret Itineraries Tour. The entry into the Doge's Palace is included with the SI Tour. If you make a reservation, unless it has changed since we were there, you don't pre-pay. When you arrive you will be asked to pay for your tour there. Hope this helps.

BTW, I would allow at least 3 hours for the whole thing.

dcd

Dejais: Like you, I'm confused. We may be talking about 2 different tours. I called the Palace direct (011 39 041 520 9070) and booked the english speaking tour. There is no charge if you don't show altho there appears to be a 1E service charge if you do make it. You can book that tour on line but I doubt there's a refund if you can't make it. The website is www.museiciviciveneziani.it. I didn't see a 9E service fee. It sounds like you may be going thru a tour company which is offering both the Secrets tour and a tour of the rest of the palace. When we finished the Secrets tour, we may have been able to pick up an audioguide somewhere but we didn't investigate that possibility. My suggestion would be to call the Palace (the operator spoke excellant english) and ask her about an audioguide tour after the Secret tour ends, if that is what you would like to do. Hope this helps.

Dave

elaine

I have found it easy on two occasions to book reservations for the Secret Itinerary.
Once we walked up to the ticket office of the DP and booked it one day in advance.
The other time we asked our hotel to make a reservation, they did, and on the day of the tour we walked up to the office and paid for the tour. On both occasions, we were free afterwards to explore the rest of the Palace on our own.