Venezia Taxi: our review of the consortium

Venezia Taxi is the second largest of Venice’s water taxi consortia, present at Marco Polo airport with a desk and a jetty and working around the clock across the lagoon. Our verdict: on the route that matters most, the airport into the historic centre, its prepaid online price is lower than the bigger competitor’s, and that alone makes it a comparison you have to run. But two conditions cut into the convenience — a surcharge paid on board if the route enters the inner canals, and online booking that is open for only part of the year — and its public reputation rests on far too few reviews to be a reliable verdict.

Who Venezia Taxi is

Start with the name, because it circulates online in a muddle. The site veneziataxi.it belongs to Venezia Taxi Consorzio, VAT number 02721160279, based at Sestiere Santa Croce 328 (Riva de Biasio); in business-register aggregators it appears as a consortium registered with the Venice Chamber of Commerce under REA 235799. On its own English-language pages it presents itself as “Consorzio Venezia Taxi”.

One correction has to be made: no source links this company to a “Cooperativa San Marco”. We searched the company’s own site, the Comune di Venezia pages on water taxis and the Italian-language sources: that name does not come up, and neither does a founding date anywhere near as old. What the company itself claims is more cautious — over thirty years of experience in the Venetian water taxi trade — which puts the start of the business in the early nineties. If you find the name “Cooperativa San Marco” attached to this consortium, it is an undocumented attribution. The fact remains that the date of incorporation, the number of member firms and the share capital are published nowhere: not on the company’s site, and not in any chamber-of-commerce source you can consult directly. Beyond the REA number there is no verifiable corporate data to lean on.

On the fleet, the consortium is descriptive rather than numerical. It lists four classes of boat: Standard in white fibreglass, Luxury Sport with part of the deck in wood, Luxury entirely in wood with leather interiors and in some cases a fridge, plus boats fitted with a hydraulic lift platform for passengers with disabilities. Stated capacity: 10 people including luggage, with the booking page indicating one suitcase per person and the FAQ going up to 12 pieces. The number of boats is not published, neither on the company pages nor in the FAQ: the consortium describes its classes of boat but never says how many it has. That is no small difference from the larger competitor, which does state a fleet figure.

What it offers and what it costs

A 24-hour service to and from the airport, Murano, Burano, Torcello and the Lido; Piazzale Roma, Santa Lucia station, the cruise terminal, Molino Stucky, Stadio Penzo; hotel transfers through the inner canals, a Grand Canal route on request, transport for passengers with disabilities and boat charter. It has staff at a desk and a jetty at Marco Polo, and is one of the private water taxi operators listed by the airport itself. On the water you will find it at the ranks at Tronchetto, Piazzale Roma, the station, Rialto and San Marco, plus Marittima and San Basilio for the cruise trade.

Like its competitor, it does not publish a fixed price list: prices live inside the booking form. These are the prepaid amounts we read at the time of checking, for two passengers with two bags, daytime, one way.

That head-to-head is the main reason this consortium is worth a look: on the airport run it asks €20 less than Consorzio Motoscafi (€140 against €160), and it matches the €80 for the trip from Piazzale Roma.

The published conditions, though, all need reading:

• €25 extra, paid to the driver, if the route uses the inner canals. It is flagged on the booking page and it is an unusual charge: the larger competitor publishes nothing like it. If your hotel does not face onto the Grand Canal, this is a likely cost.
• Online booking open only from October to March. Outside that window you book by phone or email: a real constraint in exactly the busiest months.
• No same-day online bookings.
• Night surcharge of €10 from 22:00 to 07:00, below the competitor’s €15.
• €10 per passenger from the fifth and €5 per bag from the fifth.
• A 5% discount on an airport return trip booked online.
• Cancellation and refund terms: not published. They do not appear in the FAQ or on the booking page, and the site has no general terms of sale. Before you pay, get written confirmation of how late you can cancel and on what terms.

The price list and the city tariff

Here too, comparing with the regulated fare is what tells you what you are buying.

Under the Comune di Venezia tariff, the fixed route from the airport to the historic centre is €110, the airport to Murano €60, and the airport to Burano or Torcello €140. The consortium’s online figures (€140, €110 and €180) therefore sit above the official reference, and for Murano the gap is nearly double. The same reading applies as for its competitor: the prepaid product is door to door, with an assigned boat and a locked price, while the official route fare applies rank to rank; but the difference is real, and nobody declares it at the point of purchase.

Another nuance: the consortium’s night rate is €10, the same as the official one, but applied until 07:00 rather than until 06:00. Between 06:00 and 07:00 you are paying a surcharge the city tariff does not provide for. All the official figures are collected on our fares and prices page; island transfers are covered in water taxi to Murano and Burano.

Strengths

• A lower airport price than the main competitor for the same stated service.
• A clearly described range of boats, including craft with a hydraulic lift: few operators spell out accessibility.
• A presence at the airport, with a desk and a jetty, and a place on the airport’s own list of private water taxis.
• Broad coverage: islands, the Lido, cruise work and charter, on top of the classic transfers.

Weaknesses

• The €25 inner-canal surcharge, which hits precisely the hotels that do not face the Grand Canal, and is paid on board.
• Online booking limited to part of the year, and closed for same-day trips.
• Contradictory contact hours: the FAQ list phone hours of Monday to Friday 9:00–18:00 while the site advertises a 24-hour service.
• A thin reputational base: public reviews are few and the verdict is not settled.
• No published price list and no stated cancellation policy.

What travellers say

This is where we urge caution: the volume of reviews is far below the larger competitor’s, so the averages should be taken for what they are.

On its Google listing the operator shows 4.0 from 76 reviews, at the Riva de Biasio address and with the number 041 723112. On Tripadvisor it has 3.0 from just 6 reviews: too small a sample for that number to mean anything. Among the positive ones, this sums up the service people expect: “Both were on time, helpful and spoke English.”

The negative theme we found concerns a refund that was refused after a cancellation: one Tripadvisor review, with an openly hostile headline, describes a booking cancelled seven days in advance and claims the company did not honour its own refund terms. It is a single report, on a page we could not consult directly: we mention it because it intersects with the absence of a published cancellation policy, not as evidence of systematic behaviour.

One absence is worth noting too. On travel forums, where the larger competitor is recommended constantly, there is no substantial discussion of Venezia Taxi: it turns up in a list of suggested contacts, and little else. Less independent information means fewer tools for making up your mind before you pay, and for a review that is a signal in itself.

When to choose it, and the alternatives

Venezia Taxi makes sense if you are travelling during the window when online booking is open, if your accommodation faces a main canal or the Grand Canal — so the inner-canal surcharge does not apply — and if you are comparing prices on the airport route. It is also worth contacting if you need a boat with a wheelchair platform.

Consider something else in three cases. For a night arrival or a flight at risk of delay, Consorzio Motoscafi has a 24-hour call centre and automatic flight monitoring. If the budget matters more than door-to-door service, the shared water taxi supplied by Bucintoro Viaggi costs around €39 per person and the Alilaguna scheduled boat €18. If you want to book in high season with written cancellation terms, the platforms remain the simplest channel. The overview of booking channels is in how to book a water taxi, and the route itself is covered in from the airport to Venice.

In short: Venezia Taxi is a serious consortium and cheaper than its rival on the key route, but it asks you to accept two avoidable frictions and offers few independent reviews to lean on. Before you confirm, get it in writing whether the inner-canal surcharge applies to your address.