How do you select a water taxi in Venice?
 

My husband and I will be arriving in Venice mid-afternoon after an extremely long flight from Texas. We've decided to take a water taxi to our hotel. Are there several taxis waiting at the dock for hire? Would we be better off with advance reservations? Is 80E for the 2 of us the going rate?

They are like taxis and several will be waiting. You can share the cost if you find others who may want to share.
It is a great way to enter Venice. The Alilaguna water bus will take you about 1:15 and drop you at San Marco but only costs 10E each. Have fun !

you might have your hotel send one for you??

There are usually water taxis waiting(just like how cabs are available at airports) However, you may want to e-mail your hotel and see if they will arange a water taxi pick up for you (depending where you will be staying) You will LOVE arriving by water taxi and enjoy the breathtaking view. Put on your designer shades, wear your "Texas bling bling" and you will feel very "GLAM" It will be a wonderful way to first arrive in Venice. I arrived by train, but took a water taxi on my departure to the Venice airport, and loved every minute of it. It was awesome.
You may get lucky and find other people to share the water taxi with you, but if not, enjoy the ride and snap some photos of yourselves in the taxi.

We arrived in Venice during a heavy downpour. We dropped our car off at Piazzale Roma and hurried to a water taxi stand. As the others noted, a taxi was waiting. It was also raining the day we left so we had the hotel order a taxi for us to take us to the train station.

€80 sounds a little on the high side. I think we paid about €60, but that was year before last.

I'm not sure I understand the benefit of having the hotel send a taxi. Will someone who's done this explain. Does the driver stand in the terminal with a sign with your name? Do you then walk to the dock (vs taking the shuttle bus)? Arriving mid afternoon, it would seem the simplest thing to do, rather than have to find your driver & then walk to the dock, is just to proceed to the dock via the shuttle bus & then get a taxi. Many should be waiting at that time.

Just to clarify, at the airport you will have to take a shuttle bus (free) to the water taxis. There is usually someone (dispatcher?) there who will ask how many people, bags etc. and then will tell you the rate. It's a fabulous way to enter Venice and I think worth the money, particularly if there are 2 of you.

You don;t "choose" a particular water taxi. It's like a cab line at the airport - the next taxi comes forward and the next people in line take it. (ALso, like taxi lines at the airport if you try to take a taxi out of order - unless for some specific reason like # of people it holds - there could be significant bad feeling. The drivers sometimes wait for a long time to pick up a fare and the first in line would not be happy if another taxi is used instead.)

Last summer I paid for the water taxi at a kiosk just before exiting the airport terminal. (Then I made the mistake of WALKING over to the water taxi pier, not knowing the new terminal was now rather distant and that there was a shuttle available. In the heat, with my 76 year old mom and pulling our small roller bags, it was not fun! On the return trip, we definitely waited for the shuttle bus.) At the pier we simply waved out ticket and a fella immediately escorted us to the correct water taxi and helped us in.

I had been extremely worried about my mom getting in & out of the taxi if the water was rough, but it was no problema!