BMWMOT

I was hoping someone can answer another question. On the return Florence to Venice, we need to get off at Mestre. We'll be staying at a hotel near the airport for our early flight home the next day. I'm assuming it doesn't make sense to take the train to S Lucia then back track towards the airport.
Do taxis line up at Mestre or do we need to arrange in advance transportation to the airport hotel?

I also wonder if it's less expensive to by a round trip ticket from S Lucia and back, getting off at Mestre on the return or by two one ways. I'm not sure if you can buy a round trip starting in S Lucia and ending in Mestre. Haven't investigated that yet.

Perche

This is a little confusing to me, so I'm not sure if I'm getting this right. There are usually cabs at the Mestre train station that can take you to your airport hotel, but it depends on time of day. I'm not sure how much luck you'll have in getting one at odd hours of the night. Then in the morning, the airport hotels are not actually at the airport. You have to take a shuttle that usually runs every half hour, or take a cab from the hotel to the airport. Airport hotels around Venice are dreary, you can't go out, and there's nothing to do.

Instead of wasting your last night at a dreary airport hotel, nother option is to just get off at Santa Lucia and spend your last night in Venice, especially if it is early in the evening. Early flights from Venice are a pain, but it's not hard to get to the airport from Venice, and a lot of people take a really early Alilaguna boat. It give the option of having one more night in Venice instead of being near the airport where there is nothing to do. for example, a 3:50 AM boat from San Marco Piazza gets you to the airport at 5:09, if that's how early your flight is. If staying near Fundament Nove, you can take a 4:30 boat that gets you to the airport at 5AM. If your flights are later than that, there are later boats If staying near Rialto you can take a 6AM boat that gets you to the airport at 7AM.

It's a personal choice to stay at an airport hotel. I generally prefer to enjoy the cities in Italy for one more night, and deal with the lack of sleep, unless it is not a very pleasing city like Milan, but that's a personal choice.

In Venice staying near Piazzale Roma is generally a bad idea, but for airport transport there is a regular bus service that leaves every 40 minutes, and the takes 20 minutes to get to the airport. It is called ACTVO, and I think it starts at 5 AM.

These are just other options. If in your case you do want to spend the last night in Venice at the airport and take a cab to the hotel from the Mestre train station, just buy a round ticket to and from St. Lucia to Florence, and get off at Mestre. Venice SL-Florence SM-Venice Mestre will almost certainly double the priced compared to Venice SL-Florence round trip.

PWMTrav

There's no reason I can think of to backtrack from Santa Lucia to Mestre. Take a look at a map and you'll see why. Just buy a ticket to Mestre for that segment - or if the round trip S.Lucia-SMN-SL is cheaper, just get off at Mestre on the way back. I don't think anyone's going to say you can't get off a stop early.

There are cabs at Mestre. It's a major rail station.

http://www.grandistazioni.it/cms/v/i...003f16f90aRCRD

That said, I think Perche is right about spending the night in Venice and taking the boat to the airport. In addition to spending another night in Venice, you get to take a boat to the airport. Mestre isn't really interesting to visit.

Perche

Exactly. Unlike a plane ticket where you can have multi-stops, it's hard to ticket Venice Santa Lucia - Firenze SM - Venice Mestre. One round-trip Venice SL-Firenze-Venice-SL costs about half as much and you can just hop off in Mestre.

I prefer to have one last night in Venice, even if I have to get up at 3AM for that Alilaguna to the airport. The only airport hotel I've found to be worth every penny is the Sheraton MXP.

In many cities they are called airport hotels but they are located at the airport in name only, or are only close to the airport as the crow flies. They are sometimes a 30 minute drive from the airport, almost as far away as from city center. Physically they may be located right behind the fence of the main runway but the shuttle will have to go through the city center, through a bunch of back roads, and then on a highway to get to the drop off point of the terminal. Sometimes they also have to stop at an affiliate hotel to pick up more guests.

The classic is staying at the Airport Hilton at MXP, "Only 1.1 miles from the airport." As a Hilton Gold I often stay there on points. I did so twice this year, as recently as this October, and I always swear not to do it again, but I have to burn points. It often takes more time for the Hilton shuttle to pick you up and get you to the hotel than it does for the plane to fly you from LHR to MXP, because it only comes once per hour, and it is always late.

Unless the hotel is physically located within the airport like the MXP Sheraton, I'd rather squeeze in one more night in the city and get up early than wait in an "airport hotel" lobby for a half an hour for a shuttle bus that sometimes drives me around for 30 minutes at 5 AM to take me the "one mile to the airport."

When it comes to Venice, in my opinion, it's better to have one last good time and deal with getting up early and take the Alilaguna from San Marco, or wherever you like to stay at, and get dropped off at the airport. Or if you are near Piazzale Roma, the bus will get you to the airport in 20 minutes, about the same time that a hotel shuttle will.

BMWMOT

Thanks for the info. You guys are the best. Always prompt and full of good info. Well at least my questions were answered, we can get a RT ticket from S Lucia and get off at Mestre on the way back and there are cabs to take us to the hotel.

It is a good point to stay in Venice instead. We're booked at the Courtyard by Marriott by the hotel. According to Google maps it's ~1.5km. I was thinking of spending most of the last day in Florence and get a later train to Venice, maybe arriving early evening or late afternoon but getting to Venice earlier and staying the night is an option. Something to think about. Thanks again

JMN57

As a data point on the Sheraton MXP. Saturday AM we checked out and went to check-in for our flights (AA MXP-MIA-LGA - which was our routing as a combination of award for my wife and SWU for me). I'd called the EXP desk the night before to see if we could switch to the JFK non-stop (my wife was coming down with a cold and the non-stop would be easier) but it was going to cost a lot so we stuck with our routing.

When we went to check-in, they approached us about switching to the JFK flight. It had a mechanical in NY and the inbound AA198 was delayed so the return (199) was slated to depart at 1:45PM. They had a lot of passengers reroute and they were trying to free capacity on the MIA flight and also move some to the JFK flight. We jumped at the chance.

Although I had already checked out, I quickly called the Sheraton from the check-in counter and asked if we could get access to our room. They said yes so after checking our baggage, we went back, got a key and were able to relax in the room from 8:30AM to about noon. Much better than killing time in the lounge. This was really only possible because the hotel is really in the airport. While off-site wouldn't be impossible, the overhead of getting there and back would be a pain.

Note to self: don't check out when you leave - keep the key and let them automatically check you out when the time is up!

JMN57

To close the loop:

1) yes, both passengers need to have a Cartefreccia account
2) I was able to download the TrenIt app from the website in Italy but it wasn't much help
3) I bought a Cartefreccia special fare for card holders on VCE-FLR and caught flack from a women at the ticket counter about how that fare was only for Italians... Another women there said you'll need you Cartefreccia card so I downloaded our cards from the website and had them on our phones/tablets in case we needed to produce them. On the train, no issues, never asked for it.

BMWMOT

Bought our train tix (Trenitalia) VCE-FLR on line.
Printed out our receipt I guess you'd call it. It contains our PNR#, trip info etc.
Just a logistics question- at the train station do we need to go to the ticket office to get actual 'tickets'?

PWMTrav

I assume you bought a ticket on one of le freccie for this trip - I think it's a Frecciargento run for Venice - Florence? Nope, that receipt with your PNR is your ticket. I remember pretty specifically even back in 2011 that I was able to show them the PNR on my cell phone and they were good.

The Man in Seat 61 has good resources such as seat maps:

http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-seat-plans.htm#Italy

Forrest Bump

No. Not even the printed receipt is necessary, they just need PNR#.

BMWMOT

Great info. Thank you. Yes it is Frecciargento.
Booked two seats facing each other with a table between us (1st class). On our 'ticket' there is a comment under our seat assignment that says (Detached Window). No idea what that means. I can only picture a open window flapping around in the breeze (LOL).

Good links too. I think Mr Seat 61 needs to update the seat maps though. The schedule shows us on train ETR600. The seat map on trenitalia, when I was picking our seats, has a different numbering system. Mr 61's seat map for ETR610 actually shows a current seat map and a new seat map with matches the numbering system on ETR600. I'm guessing trenitalia is changing the way they number the seats but all the maps have not caught up yet.
Anyway Thanks again