Venice in a Day: the main highlights of the city

In general we were very pleased with the tour. The highlight was the tour of St. Marco Church and the Doge's Palace. The tour guide Andrea ?? has a degree in architecture and shared many interesting insights into the buildings and the general construction of the city of Venice. He was fabulous. The gondola ride is a have to do in Venice, but was pretty underwhelming. The canals are jammed with other boats. Our boat driver never spoke a word to us, but spent plenty of time talking with the other gondola drivers. The boat tour of the Grand Canal was interesting.

This was our first time in Venice. It has the worst internet connectivity I've seen. On top of that, Google Maps kept navigating us to water taxis, rather than pedestrian bridges. In all the tours we've done elsewhere, we arrive on time or early and wait up to 30 minutes to get started. And lastly the directions provided by Viator stink. We walk everywhere, but in this case the walking directions were from Piazza San Marco, which was no where near our hotel and actually ten minutes past the meeting point. In this case, because of all the above, we were 20 minutes late for the gondola ride which was far and away the most important part of the tour. Our lateness was entirely our fault--I recognize that. But we paid over $250 for the day and no effort was made to help reschedule. In fact, everyone was pretty aloof to rude about it. We were on the first tour going out, and as many tourists as there were its hard to believe nothing could be done to help (see my Vatican review). The next step of the tour was the walking tour of the Basilica and Doge Palace. We got there 20 minutes early and waited (with another couple) under the red awning at the museo. We had to call to find out where everyone was. They were in the throng of people under an umbrella 30 yards away. We were chastised for going to the wrong place, when in fact, we did as we were told.The tour, however, was wonderful. Hazel was a great guide. I just left feeling a few people need some coaching in customer service.

Good tour to see the highlights of Venice, including a gondola ride and canal ride. Don't skip the museum - very well done.

I liked that we were able to see the major attractions in Venice and do the Gondola and Boat Tour all in one tour. The guide we had for the palace and the Church was very nice and I liked her a lot. My disappointment in the tour was that it had a long break between the 11:00 gondola ride and then 1:45 meeting time for the church/palace trip. I didn't like that we had multiple meeting points to find and would have preferred a tour that went without break between the different events instead of having a several hour period of down time to kill and where the guides took us from point to point providing information related to the sites along the way.

Let me start with the positive. First, I like the way Viator sets up their tour where you meet your guide, do the activity, then have free time on your own to eat, rest, drink, sightsee or take a bathroom break before you meet your next guide at another location to continue your experience. That allowed a good blend of tour time with free time. Our guide, that took us through St. Mark's and Doge's Palace was FANTASTIC!! He was very knowledgable and had tons of energy and personality and very friendly. He was easily the best guide we had on ANY tour on our 12 day cruise. My least favorite part was the gondola ride. Basically a waste of time. The gondolier never says anything to you and the canals are crowded with MANY other gondolas and very smelly. It was neither scenic, romantic, interesting, nor fun. After about 5 min in the gondola, I just was looking forward to getting out. The grand canal boat tour was a little better, but they put you in a water taxi boat that is covered and you really can't see out of and you can't get ANY air so you feel like a dog left in a hot car to die. Then they take you on the same route your cruise ship took to come into Venice that you have already seen and then go through the garbage dump for some unknown reason. By this time I have worked my way to the back of the boat with the other 8 people who are dying from heat stroke and we all stick our heads out of the small opening at the back of the boat to get some much needed air. FINALLY we have a little air AND we finally make it to the Grand Canal, which is supposed to be what we were touring in the first place. We all looked like prom dates on our first limo ride sticking our heads out of the sunroof, but at least we got to see the scenery along the Grand Canal and it was beautiful. I can't tell you if our guide was good or not because I was way more worried about breathing than listening. PLEASE use a boat that is open or that people can see out of and breathe for this Grand Canal Boat Tour and skip the garbage dump. Overall, we enjoyed our tour, but will definitely skip any boat tours next time we are in Venice unless I get to see and approve the boat first.

The gondola ride was the best part of this tour. The tour starts with the gondola ride, no explanation about what you are seeing during the gondola ride. Just time in the boat ride. Then you have to walk, on your own, without a guide, to the Doges Palace/St. Marks, where you wait for the tour guide. We waited over 90 minutes. Then you are met by the guide and you get your headsets, and your tour guide for the Doges Palace/St Mark tour. There are a lot of stairs to climb on this tour. Our tour guide didnt speak English very well and was hard to understand. She may have been knowledgeable, but she didnt relay the information in an understandable or engaging manner. The tour seemed to drag on. Then, it was another 3 hours until the boat tour through the Grand Canal. No explanation was given as to why a 3 hour delay was needed. You can get the same boat tour of the grand canal, using the vaporetto. For what was provided, this tour was greatly overpriced.

Too much shuffling around with different guides and different times of day.

St Marks was amazing and the host was great! The gondola ride was very crowded - but a must do in Venice. I liked that the day was planned for you but with breaks included so you could enjoy near by shops and restaurants.

Wonderful tour and guide for the Basilica and the Doges' Palace. The water taxi tour was a great way to see city as a whole.

The trip stated that we would spend 2 hours touring the city, what it didn't say was that we would tour it on our own. We met the tour guide and within 5 minuets she said I'll meet you here in 2 hours, your on your own for 2 hours. The rest of the tour was OK, nothing special.