I'm looking at taking the train from Venice to Florence on July 7th and I need to arrive there by 9:30am as I have a tour setup at 10am there. I went on the Trenitalia website and found the following 2 options:

Leaving from S. Lucia - 6:58am (change trains in Padova), arrive in Florence at 9:30am cost 80 euros.....
Leaving from Mestre - 7:39am (no changes), arrive in Florence at 9:30am cost 68 euros....

Now I'd rather take the train from Mestre as it's cheaper and gives me a little more time. I've read on here that it takes about 10-15 minutes to get from S. Lucia to Mestre via trian, so my main question is:
What time do the trains from S. Lucia to Mestre start running??

Please give me some sugggestions, thanks in advance as always....

First train out of Santa Lucia leaves at 5:11 AM and about every ten minutes or so after that

That's great.....How much is that train ride from S Lucia to Mestre??

I don't know where you found those fares - first class is no more than 60 euro, second class is much less.

You might consider taking the bus. I haven't done it, so this is secondhand info, but I believe buses go regularly from Piazzale Roma to Mestre, and cost about 2 euros.

Use this site, the official site, to look at ticket schedules and prices:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...0080a3e90aRCRD

Those prices are from the Trenitalia website, I forgot to mention it was for 2 people. Sorry.

Every train I believe leaving Santa Lucia station stops at Mestre, just across the lagoon and in many ways the workaday real Venice. so just hop on any of the zillions of trains leaving

Pal, the "zillions" don't leave every second

The standard 2nd class fare for Mestre-Firenze on a EuroStar Italia AV train is €43. The advance purchase Mini fare is €34. The fare for Santa Lucia to Mestre on a regional train should be only a couple of euro.