ssander, you have to swipe your 72 hour card every time you board a vaporetto.

Snobby, you might have seen comments on Fodors where people have complained that they had not swiped their pass, were detected and fined. They complain that other people neither swiped or were fined, so therefore tourists are being victimised.

My comment was intended to forestall that impression.

Regarding the Venezia Unica card, certainly it won't pay off for a visit of a week or less, as a seven day vap pass costs 60 euro. But once a stay of say ten days is being considered, then it does pay. Ten day's worth of passes would cost 100 euro. For that same cost, you can buy the Unica card plus about 35 vaporetto rides, and at the end of your stay, you've still got the card.

Snobby, I know that you know a bit about Venice, so it did surprise me that you said that the Unica cards were no longer being issued, as that's not really correct. And for me, NOT having a Unica card would be pretty dumb. I'm in Venice for two weeks in September for the Biennale, and next March for a friend's book launch. The card gets a fair bit of use, no doubt as yours does.

<i><font color=#555555>"Snobby, you might have seen comments on Fodors where people have complained that they had not swiped their pass, were detected and fined. They complain that other people neither swiped or were fined, so therefore tourists are being victimised."</font></i>

I've never seen such a post, but I miss a lot of posts because I have a life to live.

Some people don't validate their cards and get away with it. The boat inspectors don't catch everyone. But these days, more and more people are getting caught, even if they're Italian.

<i><font color=#555555>"But once a stay of say ten days is being considered"</font></i>

I can't remember the last time I saw a thread on Fodor's about a ten-day stay in Venice. It was probably a thread you started, Pesky Peter. No matter. I fail to see the relevance on this particular thread.

<i><font color=#555555>"it did surprise me that you said that the Unica cards were no longer being issued"</font></i>

I never said that. I said the "imob" cards were discontinued. There's a difference.

I shall allow NYCFS the last word on this issue.

For once that Snob is actually giving useful info, it would be disgracious not to let her have the last word.

Buona notte

with a short visit like 4 days, I would skip the islands..

far better just to wander, get lost, wander some more...that is venice... stand at a café bar, drink coffee or hot chocolate... move on

i'm going next week for X5 and can't wait.

<i><font color=#555555>"I shall allow"</font></i>

LOL! Such an inflated sense of power.

<i><font color=#555555>"you have to swipe your 72 hour card every time you board a vaporetto"</font></i>

To be perfectly clear, it's not really a "swipe," not in the sense of credit card cashier terminals or ATM machines. You simply hover/hold your card over the face of the imob machine and wait for the beep which signals validation.

Here is an old photo of the imob validation machine:

venicetravelblog.com/2010/10/imob-discount-vaporetto-card-is-now-valid-for-5-years.html

The cards are no longer called "imob" but the new cards are still using the imob machines. Venice loves to confuse its tourists. It's maddening.

The ACTV website used to have a video on how to use the card/machine, but that's gone. I did a quick search on YouTube, and I'm surprised by the quantity of junk. With all its visitors, one would think someone locally would take a decent video of each update. Oh well. It's obvious I'm not running the tourist board.

Hi again, after seeing ssanders questions on here it has raised another query with myself.
We have already booked a water taxi via the website Viator to get us from Marco Polo airport to San Marco but unfortunately they don't seem to do a return so we had just assumed we would get the Alilaguna water bus back but I didn't realise that the vaporetta pass would not be valid for that.
So my query is, once we arrive at the airport we are going to buy our vap pass for however many days we deem necessary and can we also buy our ticket there for our return to the airport on the water bus, even though it will be for 5 days hence? On their website it says you can buy tickets in the arrival hall but cannot exchange a voucher bought online which is why I wondered if I could buy an advance ticket to get us back to the airport.
Or alternatively am I best buying online so I have a voucher and then would I be able to exchange that for a ticket at a booth the day before we leave. We need to be on the 8am boat so exchanging the voucher on the day may not be viable if the ticket office isn't open.
I hope this makes sense and once again many thanks for everyone's help.

There was a time when the airport lobby was your only choice at Marco Polo for buying tickets. Thankfully, times have changed. When I walk by all those long lines of people at the airport counter, with tired, frustrated faces, waiting and waiting for the line to move, I say: too bad they didn't do a little research.

Viator is a Trip Advisor company. As far as I know, they have no local roots in Venice. I prefer VeniceLink because they're based in Venice. You can purchase all the tickets you want at VeniceLink, even water taxi tickets.

You're correct, you cannot use any type of vaporetto ticket to board an Alilaguna boat. However, you can buy both tickets online and save yourself a huge headache. With the PNRs:

1. Visit the Alilaguna booth at the water taxi dock to trade in your PNR for actual tickets. These docks are all next to one another. Even without a PNR, you can purchase an Alilaguna ticket (for your return date) here with almost no lines.

2. Use the ACTV PNR machines located at all the main stops throughout Venice to acquire your vaporetto passes. It doesn't matter what time you pick-up these tickets. They don't become active until your first validation time-stamp.

Ditto on the dockside Alilaguna booth...no line at all when we were there in 2013.

ssander

Heading to Venice next week. Thanks for the info on getting tickets at the dock. Plan on taking the Orange line.

OTD

>>Viator is a Trip Advisor company. As far as I know, they have no local roots in Venice. <<

They use locals for travel/guide services.

In the event the line at the transportation desk in the airport is too crowded, can one buy the 3 day vaporetto pass at the ACTV PNR machines around town as well as pick up passes for which one has prepaid on Venice Link?

also, i am planning to reserve a water taxi on Venice Link for transport from the airport to our apartment. Are there specific Venice Link water taxis and will it be clear to us which ones to take when we go to the dock near the airport?

Also, I noticed a huge price difference E99 v. E200 between the water taxi on Venice link and the water taxi on Viator. The difference appears to be that with Viator, someone comes into the airport to find you and carries your bags?

<i><font color=#555555>"can one buy the 3 day vaporetto pass at the ACTV PNR machines around town as well as pick up passes for which one has prepaid on Venice Link?"</font></i>

The machines provide a variety of services, except give a lot of change. Some machines have money limits, which make using the machines more complicated, possibly slowing up lines. But yes, the machines are there to purchase tickets at all hours, especially when the booths with a human are closed.

<i><font color=#555555>"Are there specific Venice Link water taxis and will it be clear to us"</font></i>

VeniceLink will send you a legal, registered taxi boat from Consorzio Motoscafi Venezia, Venice's leading taxi operator. They are easy to identify. See www.motoscafivenezia.it/eng/.

<i><font color=#555555>"I noticed a huge price difference E99 v. E200 between the water taxi on Venice link and the water taxi on Viator."</font></i>

Water taxi and Alilaguna users need to make a short walk to the docks from the terminals. The airport provides carts, but you need Euro coins to get them to un-latch. You can get your coin back after you return the cart and re-latch it. Most tourists leave the carts with coins in them, and I'm sure someone is confiscating those coins along the way.

No one from either service will meet you in the airport lobby. Perhaps Viator provides this additional service, but in Venice, additional services typically mean more €€€€€.

Sorry. By "return the cart and re-latch it," I mean return it to any cart bin. There's no need to return it to the bin where you got it. There are cart bins at the boat docks.

We have used Viator many times in different countries, they always use local guides etc. and we've always been really happy with the service. The water taxi we have booked with them wasn't at all expensive only £24 each, just under 30 euros, and we have been instructed to go to desk 71 once we arrive and their representative will meet us and take us out to the boat.
It costs a great deal more if you are booking the boat just for yourselves but we have done the shared one, it takes a maximum of 6 people so we are quite happy with that.

>>No one from either service will meet you in the airport lobby. Perhaps Viator provides this additional service,<<

What sharone said.

They do provide a meeting spot in the airport lobby. It's at the desk of a local travel agent.

You can buy the tickets for the vaporetto on board, but you have to inform the boat operator that you want to do so before boarding. The cost is €7.50, the same price as a ticket bought at the ticket booth, and the validity for both is 75 minutes. I found this on the following ACTV page, in Italian. You can run it through translate.google.com to get a fairly good translation.

http://actv.avmspa.it/it/content/prezzi-vigore-0

For vaporetto tickets, you have to scroll down to "Ordinary business card without VeneziaUnica. For some reason, they translated "biglietto" (ticket) as "business card", even though it's translated correctly elsewhere on the page. ("Business card" would be "biglietto da visita".) They also left out the word "navigation", on this and on the next two categories, which is the only thing that distinguishes these from bus tickets, described above, which are much cheaper. I've reported the translation errors to Google.