Venice From Rome: Enjoy A Day Tour By Fast Train, Small Group

Mr Serverio was excellent guide with good knowledge and professionalism. We got to know background history of Venice

I am a senior with mobility issues, so climbing stairs is a problem for me. Joseph, my guide, helped me avoid steps, and assisted me when I needed it. He made Venice an enjoyable experience for me. I wish he was available for my other tours.

The provided guide was late to the train meeting point, did not discuss an agenda for the day while on the train, our train tickets were not together because the company planners were too lazy to manually pick them, they scheduled us to come back after 14 hours instead of 16 leaving no time to enjoy any of the sites. The guide did not offer for us to take the water taxi to the St. Mark square as he felt we would not see enough of Venice if we did not walk through. He never considered the needs of his customers. We ended up buying train tickets together for a later return making it a 16-hour day as planned and asking the guide to go on his own. We then got skip the line tickets and were able to see the Doge but missed the Basilica and a gondola ride because the guide had his own agenda - hope you do this trip on your own and have a better outcome than we did! We asked for a refund but we were denied.

Our tour guide for the day was so personable and friendly and we really enjoyed the opportunity to meet her on this day trip; however, this tour was not what we had expected based on the description. First of all, we were the only couple in this tour...so no small group at all. For some people this would be ideal if you required lots of individual attention throughout the day, but we did not need this much attention and would have really enjoyed some time to look through a couple of shops on our own without our guide with us the entire time. And once St. Mark's Square and a few other places were pointed out to us, we really would have preferred time to explore or at least walk around this area a little bit on our own. We also did not need the guide to ride on the train to/back from Venice for the approx. 4 hour ride each way with us (total of almost 8 hours). We had paid more for the first-class train tickets option and were disappointed to find that we did not sit near each other on the 4-hour ride back to Rome. We would understand if this was a last-minute booking, but this trip was booked months in advance. We had expected that we would have seats by each other. Again, the guide was extremely courteous and also helped us find a gondola ride at the end of the day. This would have been more romantic if the guide wasn't on the gondola with us and we could have enjoyed this on our own (especially since we returned to the exact location). This was not the small group tour we were expecting based on the description. This might be perfect for another couple/family, but we wish someone had left a review like this so we would have known what to actually expect. We felt like it was extremely overpriced only to have someone literally walk around with us for a few hours (nothing else was included). We booked several guided tours during our time in Italy and I'm sorry to say this was our least favorite which is a shame because Venice is such a beautiful place to visit!

Great tour of Venice! This tour does involve a 3 1/2 hour train ride from Rome to Venice and vice versa. We were escorted the entire way from pick up at the hotel to drop off at the end of the tour. Our Guide was Guiliani and he also accompanied us on the train. In Venice, we walked through the streets and Guiliani explained the history of Venice. We also took a gondola ride (not included in price of the tour) and were impressed with the skill of the gondoliers. Lunch (own expense) was good and afterwards we went to a glass blowing demonstration. Our last stop was St Marks square and St Mark's Basilica. We were able to bypass the long line with our tour guide. St Marks is beautiful and well worth the visit. We returned to the train station by water taxi along the Grand Canal. Guiliani was a great guide; he gave us great information about Venice and the sights and made sure that we were able to see and do everything in Venice that we wanted. This was a long day but really memorable. My only advice would be to bring something to read on the long train ride. For us since it was October much of the train ride was in darkness (so hard to see the countryside).