Venice Private Arrival Transfer by Water Taxi: Cruise Port to Central Venice

Posted By : Martin_S
Info from Viator said someone would be at the cruise terminal. We waited until our pickup time. When no one showed, it turns out we had to go to the water taxi doc, which was 2 blocks away. We had to wait another 30 minutes for our taxi. Better info would have helped.
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Posted On : 2024-06-13 06:26:24

Posted By : Janice_F
horrible,....in pouring rain with luggage we waited 2 1/2 hours,....the private service never showed,.....spent additional money and time to contact them,....horrible!!!!!
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Posted On : 2023-10-20 07:50:24

Posted By : Kevin_O
Our Water Taxi never showed at 10AM as confirmed and we waited over 3 hours. TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.
I called the operator 5 times with no answer so we gave up
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Posted On : 2023-10-07 14:38:23

Posted By : Stanley_B
Hello Mr. Vincent,

I wasn’t able to complete my comments regarding my Venice Private Arrival Transfer by Water Taxi: Cruise Port to Central Venice Booking Reference BR 1070574973; thank you for giving me the opportunity to give you the full account of this encounter.

My party of 3, all in our mid-seventies - two of who had medical issues making luggage transport difficult - booked the “Full” Arrival Transfer service through Viator; this was to provide a representative meeting us at the cruise terminal in Marittima ar 0900 and accompanying us on our water taxi transfer to our lodging in Central Venice at the Instituto Canossianno San Travaso. We had paid in full ($202.37) at the time of the booking, and I confirmed the day before, receiving back a message from Bucintoro Viaggi: “Yes confirmed! Our assistant Vito will wait for you. Best Regards”.
No one met us at the cruise terminal. I texted and got no response. I called Viator but got only a tree of voice mail options none of which was appropriate. After a half hour of waiting, I got on the line for persons without reservations seeking water taxi transfers. The agent there, after at least four phone calls over the course of an hour, got our water taxi to show up - 90 minutes after the scheduled pick-up. In the meantime, many of the persons without reservations had long since left on their taxis.
I had clearly given the lodging name at the time of booking. Despite this, the water taxi driver took us to a point - according to him a 5 minute walk - far from the lodging and over 2 Venetian bridges. Since only one of us was capable of dealing with the luggage especially up and down the steps at the bridges, the “5 minute walk” took another 30 minutes and we arrived at our destination exhausted and 2 hours later than planned. By way of contrast, I had booked a water taxi transfer with Consorzio Motoscafi from our lodging to the airport for the next day; he arrived on time and picked us up a few steps away from our lodging.
As a consequence of the 2 hours wasted, we missed our scheduled Skip the Line St. Marks Basilica Guided Tour with GetYourGuide at 1100 and have lost both the $124.86 spent and the opportunity to visit this most desirable opportunity.
I have just learned from the Viator App that my refund request has been rejected. I hope that you will will reverse that decision immediately, given the above.
If you have any further questions about this encounter please feel free to contact me either by email or phone.

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Posted On : 2023-10-07 14:09:13

Posted By : Tom_F
The ride was very nice once we found out when and where to meet. We were told we would receive instructions prior but no word after repeated contact attempts.
Expected we would be assisted with our bags to our hotel but that was not the case. We paid a lot of extra money for the private transfer expecting extra service. Next time we will queue with everyone else to get a taxi off the cruise. We were the last to get off the pier.
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Posted On : 2023-10-06 01:00:59

Posted By : Deanna_M
Laura was great, walked us into the airport and directed us to where we needed to be. Very personable. Spoke great English
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Posted On : 2023-10-05 14:06:47

Posted By : Mary_M
I would give this service zero stars if I could. I'm not sure what other options people have from getting to Venice from the cruise terminal as nothing seemed organized and very little options were available but don't use this service. I booked this PRIVATE TAXI IN ADVANCE so we wouldn't be stranded at the cruise terminal after our cruise, I even called the tour operator a few days before to confirm a time and place and was assured someone would be there waiting for me with my name on a sign at 9:30 am. We walked out and saw multiple people with signs but none for us. I called the tour operator no less than 8 times over the span of an hour and a half and answers ranged from "someone is there, let me call them and I will call you back" to "go stand in line at the ticket counter and show them your voucher (which did nothing)" , to "go find the woman on the pier" to "we will call you back with a taxi number". After an hour we were able to grab the attention of the only person there that seemed to have any idea what was going on or seemed helpful, a woman on the pier with a walkie talkie and we were finally able to get a water taxi to our hotel. Again, this was horrible and a very frustrating way to end a vacation after spending $180. I get there not being a lot of taxis in the area after the amount of cruise ships has lessened but we pre-booked a taxi at a specific time to arrive and were told they would be there waiting for us, so after being told "no taxis are available right now" in the mix of never getting a call back while waiting on a dock...0 stars. I did reach out to Viator support and received a refund, which was helpful.
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Posted On : 2023-10-03 16:17:04

Posted By : Danielle_R
The tour operator never responded to several attempts to reach out and confirm information via viator chat, email, phone calls, messages, what’s app. We were left with no transfer and took us 2 hours to figure out how to get to our location. It was a terrible experience.
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Posted On : 2023-07-04 12:05:19

Posted By : neil_j
This was an excellent service. Money well spent on a well organised transfer to our hotel. Thank you
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Posted On : 2023-04-10 15:26:20

Posted By : Sheri_B
The transfer was a little bit pricy I will admit. But our representative called us as we were transferring from our ship to the pickup point and met us the minute we got off the bus. I will say it was a bit of a challenge letting them know where we would be for the pickup since ships can’t dock in Venice any more. But with persistent messaging we figured it out. Once off our bus, our guide met us straight away and took us directly to our private water taxi and then inside our hotel. I know that may not seem like much but first time in Venice can be intimidating to older folks and it was worth it to have the personal touch
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Posted On : 2022-08-06 17:31:49