Where to stay in Venice

[cruiser man]

We will be flying into Venice on a Sunday evening and leaving on our cruise on Monday. We would like the opportunity to tour Venice Sunday night and Monday morning prior to leaving on the cruise but don't want to have to spend $150 plus on a private water taxi to get to a hotel and $100 to get from the hotel to the port (we had to spend that much this year when we stayed at the Hilton Molino Stuckey). What are your recommendations on places to stay that would give us easy access to the airport and pier and still provide access to Venice and St. Marks Square?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[euro cruiser]

How about staying in the area of the train station/Piazzale Roma? You can take a land taxi from the airport to Piazzale Roma and walk from there (much, much cheaper than a water taxi) and also be close to the cruise port.

 

Here's a hotel to look at, http://www.hotel-florida.com/.

 

I haven't stayed there personally, but know someone who did and felt that it was a good value. Not top-of-the-line, but a good price for what was offered, especially given the location.

[pete_coach]

You can always stay in Mestre. It is the city just on the mainland. A 10 minute, 2 euro train ride into St Lucia station in Venice. The hotels are half the price and you will not have to pay the high transport fares.

One time, we stayed at the Hotel Bologna http://www.hotelbologna.com right outside the train station in Mestre. Yes, you not wake up in Venice proper but, it is half the price, you don't have to drag your luggage over cobblestone streets and bridges, you don't have to pay huge water taxi fares and you still have an opportunity to explore Venice.

Just an alternative. By the way, there are many many hotels in Mestre. Lots of people base themselves out of the town to avoid the very high hotel costs in Venice proper. Go to tripadvisor and search fro hotels in Mestre.

[cusyl]

We also stayed at Best Western Hotel Bologna across from the train station. I believe the trains run until midnight. We dropped our luggage at the hotel, then went to Venice and walked around until we were too tired after that long flight.

Returned to the hotel and in the morning had their complimentary breakfast and took a land taxi to the ship. In our cabin were shuttle boat tickets to St Marks at $10 each. We then returned to St Marks Square and spent the day, taking the boat shuttle back to the ship.

While we were in Venice we bought Alguna tickets (waterbus) and you can get on and off it at different docks to easily see more of the city.

[agabbymama]

Alilaguna is not the waterbus. Vaporetto pass is what you want. Alilaguna is a private company that runs to/from the airport.

 

Another nice looking hotel in Mestre is Golden Tulip Tritone.

 

I was originally going to stay at Golden Tulip, but once I saw Ca Doge at Piazzale Roma, booked there at 175 EUR for a double. It cost a little more, but was so convenient for the bus, taxi, vaporetto, grocery store and tourist information. Piazzale Roma is the transportation hub of Venice. We got off the Princess shuttle bus and walked maybe 100 feet on flat, blacktop to the hotel (no bridges, cobblestones, etc to schlepp the luggage over). Then two days later did the same thing in the pouring rain to the blue bus to the airport. Really convenient and a lovely hotel.

[Hlitner]

Considering the OP's situation (only an evening and morning in Venice) the idea of staying all the way out at Mestre does not make much sense. The best bet would be to simply stay in the Piazale Roma area which is convenient to the airport (cheap airport buses), the cruise port (its even walkable or a cheap taxi ride), and the Venice vaporetto system. As to hotels, we have personally stayed at Ca Doge which is located right on the Piazale. It is a European style hotel (small rooms) with very friendly (and English speaking) staff and a perfect location. From that hotel it is a 3 min walk to the Vaporetto stop where you can get fast transportation to anywhere in Venice. It takes about 20 min to walk from there to the port (a pain with luggage) but, as I mentioned, you can also just grab a land taxi for a fair price. There is also sometimes a free shuttle bus that runs from the Piazale Roma to the port, but this seems to be hit or miss.

 

Hank

[patrickmoran]

I had great success using www.venere.com to find hotels for upcoming cruise, including one in Venice. The nice feature of venere.com is that it allows you to restrict your search to meet your needs (price, location, etc). I would then use tripadvisor.com to get reviews of the hotels that were listed by venere.com. I then checked the hotels' websites to see how to get the best price.

 

To find hotels around P. Roma in Venice, which would be the best location, restrict the search to Santa Croce -West.

[alexant]

We are going on a cruise in 3 weeks...staying over night in Venice...at Hotel Olimpia...walking distance to ship. Good reports on Trip Advisor and for one night looks what will work for us. You might want to check it out.

[tamarackcabin]

In July, we stayed at the Hotel Wildner, which is right on the lagoon and few 100 yards down the street from St. Mark's Square. There's a vaporetto stop right in front of the hotel, and a little farther away is an Aliguna stop that will take you to the cruise terminal. (By the way, the Princess shuttle also stops right in front of the hotel, but unfortunately they won't take you to the ship unless you've already checked in.) It's a reasonable, by Venice standards, especially if you don't pay extra in a lagoon view. The hotel does not have an elevator, but the staff was very helpful in taking our bags to our third-story room.