Venice Card

[PattyB]

I think I read on this board that it was better to buy the Venice Card for the water buses once you are already in Venice -- but I can't find the post! I believe it had to do with a problem activating the card if you pre purchased it online. Does anyone know where you purchase these cards in Venice? Thanks, Patricia

[Mike Andrews]

Hi Patty,

I think you have to order it over the net or call the call centre. [url="http://WWW.venicecard.com"]WWW.venicecard.com[/url]

[Mike Andrews]

Hi Patty,

If you only require a card for travel on the water buses they are available at any manned Vaporetto ticket booth. The cost for a 24 hour travelcard is €10.50 and for a 72 hour travelcard is €22.00. [url="http://WWW.actv.it"]WWW.actv.it[/url]

[wwinfl91]

My wife and I elected to get a Venice card for our visit to Venice last summer. We were staying 3 extra days in addition to the one day on the ship. By this I mean the ship arrived on a Sunday morning and we flew out of Venice on Thursday afternoon. In order to get as much use out of the card as possible we walked over from the ship to the Piazzo Roma where we were told we would be able to pick up and pay for the card we had reserved online. The Venice card booth there was closed but we were able to pick up our cards in the ACTV booth but were required to pay for the card in cash (euros only please). Luckily we had enough euros with us to cover the cost as we had expected to be able to pay with our credit card. We later learned had we picked up our Venice card in the booth that is near St Marks we could have paid for it with our credit card but we didn't know that at the time.

We got the elevated version of the card which allowed us access to the actv waterbus, a number of attractions as well as use of the public toilets. I never did figure how to use the card at the public toilets which only seemed to take coins. We used the waterbuses everyday several times a day during our stay. But we could have gotten an actv pass that would have accomplished the same thing for less money. We did use the card to get into several of the major attractions around St Marks square so we did use that part of the card.

When looking at what the Venice card costs versus what an actv card and paying our admissions to the St Marks square attractions it turned out the Venice card didn't end up a good deal for us.

Anyway that was our experience with the Venice card. Someone earlier posted the Venice card URL where they is a detailed although a little hard to understand explaination of the various card options.

The site below also has some information on the Venice card as well as a lot of other great information about Venice.

[url="http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/"]http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/[/url]

Enjoy your cruise and your time in Venice.

HAL Noordam 3/97 West Carib
Hal Westerdam 12/97 East Carib
HAL Veendam 11/98 East Carib
Hal Zaandam 12/00 South Carib
HAL Veendam 10/01 Panama Canal
RCCL Enchantment 09/02 W.Carib
Costa Atlantica 12/02 E.Carib
HAL Noordam 03/03 S.Carib
Golden Princess 07/03 Med
Celebrity Zenith 12/03 W.Carib
HAL Maasdam 05/04 Canada

[PattyB]

Thank you for your very informative postings. Based on your comments, I would say that we are good candidates for the 3-day ACTV card, but not the Venice card! Patty

[Mike Andrews]

Hi Patty,

Yes,just remember to validate it in the ticket machine when you make your first trip.

Enjoy Venice !

[wwinfl91]

One thing we noticed with the ACTV waterbuses was at least half the time no one asked us for our Venice card nor they seem to ask many people on many trips. What I had heard was that if you didn't pay for the trip that the fines were much much higher than the original fee would have been. I think your decision to go with the 3 day ACTV card is probably a wise move and one we will do when we return to Venice someday.

Have a great cruise.

HAL Noordam 3/97 West Carib
Hal Westerdam 12/97 East Carib
HAL Veendam 11/98 East Carib
Hal Zaandam 12/00 South Carib
HAL Veendam 10/01 Panama Canal
RCCL Enchantment 09/02 W.Carib
Costa Atlantica 12/02 E.Carib
HAL Noordam 03/03 S.Carib
Golden Princess 07/03 Med
Celebrity Zenith 12/03 W.Carib
HAL Maasdam 05/04 Canada