Celebrity venice shuttle

[katmich12]

I just read Amy's Solstice review (thanks Amy) and was concerned about the problems encountered on the Celebrity Venice shuttle to St. Mark's Square. We will be in Venice in October and had planned to use the vaparetto the first day. We have tickets for the Doge's Palace tour and the Bascillica the next morning so were planning on buying the Celebrity shuttle pass that day. Sounds like a problem. For those of you who have taken a vaparetto, how long would it probably take to get back to the ship from the Bascillica? Can we start back and hope to reach the ship before it leaves at 1:30?? Have any had a good experience with the Celebrity shuttle?

Thanks,

Lindy

[Lsimon]

We had no problems with the Celebrity shuttle - although we didn't read the review you spoke of.

 

When we first arrived in Venice (noon sail in) there was a pretty long line for the shuttle - probably about 20 to 30 minute wait. But that's not too bad and we had no other issues.

[trabeler]

We used the vaporetto while there in June. On the first day, we were off the ship at 2 pm and in St. Mark's Square by 3 pm. The walk to the Piazza Roma station took about 20 minutes (we're relatively fast walkers). We took the 41 vaporetto since it's more direct (follows the same route as the ship shuttle).

 

The next day we were off early and took the #1 vaporetto to get a scenic tour of the grand canal. We left the ship a little after 7 am which was before the ship shuttle started (at 8 am) and had St. Mark's Square pretty much to ourselves for 30 minutes or so until the first ship shuttle arrived.

 

On that day, we did the Doge's Palace tour shortly after it opened (around 9 am). We had plenty of time to wander through the Palace and then go to the Basilica at 11 am (we had pre-reserved a timeslot on their website). We were done with the Basilica shortly after noon, caught the #42 vaporetto back to the ship and were onboard around 1 pm.