Yes, it is expensive.

No, it is not worth the hotel savings to stay in Lido in the winter. The cost of the tickets, if you buy a pass, is negligible, but the ferry will consume time that you can use exploring Venice itself, which is at its best very early in the morning and late at night. You want to be able to walk out your door into the maze of "streets". More important is that in the event of bad weather, the ride from Lido on a ferry might be uncomfortable and the ferry might be cancelled or delayed.

It would be better, in my view, to spend fewer nights in Venice than more nights in Lido or, for that matter, Mestre. Others may have a different view.

I totally agree with the above.

Absolutely agree with Ackislander. It's expensive but there are ways to economize with a little planning. Bars serve delicious cicchetti which are quite reasonable (and can be made a meal of) and there are restaurants with more reasonable pre fixe menus (yes, tourist-y restaurants but alot of Venice is tourists!) We stayed is Dorsoduro and walked virtually everywhere which saved the (high) cost of the Vaporetto - it's a great walking city.

I'd try and stay in Venice if I could. I'd aim for a B&B we used B&B "Repubblica Marinara" simple, cheap and well placed . If not that then I'd go with Ackislander and stay in Old Mestre and catch the bus or train in.

Food, try and eat a few streets back from the main drawers. We found "Pane, Vino e San Daniele" was a good price. But again if you are in Mestre the prices will drop way down.

> how much does the water bus taxi's cost you ..

I see you are confused. There is water bus ( vaporetto ) and there is water taxi. Water bus is, well, like land bus and water taxi is like land taxi. I suppose you can see the differences.

For the vaporetto tickets, you can see the details here.http://www.actv.it/en/movinginvenice/movinginvenice
A single ticket is €7.00 that's quite costly so I usually buy 72hr pass which is good for all the islands as well ( e.g. Lido, Murano, Burano, etc).

You are going in low season and many hotels are 1/2 to even 1/3 lower compared to high seasons. From about mid November to end of Christmas is one of the lowest seasons in Venice, hotel price-wise. So not only it's not a beach season when you are going but also time to take advantage of low hotels rates. I'm travelling to Venice again on 1st Dec and will stay in a nice 3* hotel, Ca' Zose, in above mentioned Dorsoduro district. I'm paying for a double room, € 220.00 for the total stay of 4 nights breakfast included ( + there wil be about €1.50 city tax per person per night - this tax is also higher until about end of October). How does that sound?

ACTV vaporetto passes do not include the trasportation between airport and Venice city. If you are not taking the expensive water taxi ( official rate Airport - Venice is €110.00 oneway for a motor boat that can take up to 6 persons), there are Alilaguna boat lines and ACTV / ATVO land bus lines. Which to take would depend on the location of your hotel.

We visited the Lido in March and most things were closed. The casino moves to Venice in the winter also. My impression was that the Lido is for summer--for the beach.

That being said, we had a lovely lunch and a peaceful walk. There were roads and cars there. We took the Vap there and back. On the trip back, the vap took folks to a commuter spot and that added more time to our trip. You'd need to know the vap schedules/routes if you stay there.

I'd stay in Venice proper.

This http://en.turismovenezia.it/Where-to-Stay/1352487021.html might offer alternatives for places to stay.

The Lido is nothing like Venice proper and taking the vaporetto (water bus) back and forth is a major PIA. (You don;t mean water taxi - unless you really want to splurge.)

Also - make sure there is no convention if you want to stay on the Lido. That's where the convention center is - and if a larger one is going on you can wait 30 minutes to an hour to get ON a vaporetto to Venice proper.

Thank you so much for all the advice and help. I really appreciate it!!! So from the airport what is the cheapest way to get into Venice central? Or is there maybe a website you can direct me to?

The cheapest way into the city from the airport is the bus which takes you to the Piazzale Roma, the last place you can get in Venice on wheels. From there, you can take the vaporetto water bus anywhere you need to go that is beyond walking distance. When you find a hotel, they will give you directions, important because there are no street numbers as we know them in other countries.

I believe you can buy the bus ticket and your vaporetto pass at the airport, but others will correct me if I am wrong.

Here is the Venice Connected webite with transport info and prices http://www.veniceconnected.com/node/1477

The ACTV site I posted above tell all the ticket/pass prices.

There is no reason to buy the passes on veniceconnected site any longer because these is no discount. You can just buy at airport as Ackislander wrote or at any manned vaporetto stops.

What? They don't offer discount any more? Hmmm....