Zerlina

Your hotel has obviously not updated its information in quite some time...

1. There is now an Alilaguna service direct to the Rialto; it costs 12 Euro. It's the Linea Arancio (orange). Be sure you get the right one, as they go to different places. And no, you would *not* want to walk with luggage from Fondamenta Nove to near the Rialto.

2. Water taxi 100 Euro sounds about right; it may be more by now.

3. ATVO bus is 3 Euro, but vaporetto Piazzale Roma to Rialto is 6 Euro.

SUMMAGOLD

does anyone know how much is a private water taxi from piazzale roma to rialto bridge or san marco?

how much is a private water taxi from rialto bridge to santa lucia train station?

thanks for any and all opinions.

ellenem

You hotel has given you some slightly outdated prices. I've adjusted them within your message below.

Option 1: Alilaguna 40 mins to Fondamenta Nove 12E (per person), and "a very nice walk" to Rialto bridge.
If you are Venice beginners, I would not begin my trip with this "nice walk" and luggage.

Option 2: private water taxi, 30 mins 100E (can anyone confirm this rate? its rather expensive!)
Yes, this is what it costs. We recently paid 90E to San Stae. Rialto is a bit further. But this is the cost for the entire boat, as many as 4-6 people I believe. We were a group of four, so it became 22.50E per person for door-to-door service, directly to our hotel.

Option 3: 15 mins public bus to Piazzale Roma for 3E; and 20 mins vaporetto to rialto 6.00E. (total 35-40 mins at 9.00E per person).

SUMMAGOLD

Zerlina and Ellenem, thanks so much for your posts. It is because of you why I keep coming back to Fodors for opinions and answers. Thank you!

I sent our hotel an email letting them know about the direct service alilaguna to rialto. lets hope they update their information. This is definitely the route we will be taking. I also found this website to Alilaguna. http://www.alilaguna.it/

WillTravel

Although I've mentioned it on other threads, I don't think the following option has been mentioned specifically on this thread:

#5 ACTV bus from airport to Piazzale Roma, Vaporetto to Rialto.

ACTV is the transit authority for the Venice area.

I don't know what the price is for two separate tickets, but if you are doing this, I would just get the 72-hour ACTV transit pass, because both the ACTV buses and the vaporettos of these are covered by it, and you would be able to use the pass to return to the airport, as well as to take the vaporettos whenever you like.

If you don't get the ACTV transit pass, the #5 ACTV bus is slightly cheaper than the ATVO bus.

The ACTV bus is a public bus that is not express, so it takes about 25 minutes or so to Piazzale Roma. The ACTV bus has some luggage storage space, but I think the ATVO has more. Thus, many people prefer the ATVO bus to the ACTV.

This is the approach I took, and it worked very well, but I would not recommend it if you have a lot of luggage.

SUMMAGOLD

willtravel, you mention that the ACTV bus takes about 25 minutes or so to Piazzale Roma. What about the ATVO bus? Whats the time on that?

WillTravel

I think someone posted that the ATVO bus takes 15 minutes? That is about what I would expect, considering ATVO has no stops, and #5 ACTV has a few stops.

Grcxx3

The quote we got from the hotel for a private water taxi to pick us up at the train station and take us to our hotel (HOtel Bonnevvechia - forgive spelling....not enough coffee) was 160 Euros for 4 people. We chose to take the #82 vaporetto instead. But we did take a water taxi to the airport (just us) and the cost was 30 Euros per person, for a total of 120 Euros.