Venice in a Day Tour with St Mark's, Doge's Palace and Gondolas

We were unlucky with the weather, raining and cold, but our tour guide Roberta made the day one to remember. She was so knowledgeable about her city and clearly loved talking about it’s history and traditions, and brought the place to life. The tours of st Mark’s basilica and the doges palace were fascinating. She was also thoughtful and checked in with the less agile members in our group to make sure they knew what stairs etc were coming up. The gondola ride was shared with one other couple from our group and was totally enjoyable. There was a high tide and the gondolier had to crouch down to get under some of the bridges and he explained the problems they have with flooding in the city. I would thoroughly recommend this tour.

Our tour guide was warm, cheerful, informative, thoughtful and made our experience excellent. The two of us were paired with a group of 3 others, and the 6 of us had a nice time exploring St. Mark and the Doge's Palace thoroughly, with all our questions answered. The gondola ride just before lunch was a nice break and then we found a good lunch nearby. My husband (who is typically the "do it yourself" type, thought the money was well spent.

Fantastic day!!! Our guides were incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, engaging, and fun to spend the day with. Real professionals. I’d highly recommend as a great way to cut the lines and see the “must do’s” within Venice in short order but also with a good amount of depth. The gondola ride was also a lot of fun!

The tour guide was very friendly and knowledgeable. I would definitely recommend this tour. She was excellent.

Grace was a lovely guide during our 6+ hour excursion. Her knowledge of the Doge and palace was extensive. The 25ish minute gondola ride was the perfect length, and it was fun to have a view of the city from the canals. Overall we had a great experience.

Hello, I have taken a few tours with different companies. I have given the tour of Venice, Italy by Guida T. a five star rating. She was friendly, spoke clear English, interacted with each person in our party in a friendly playful way, I was a part of a six-person group. Guida was more then willing to answer any questions, she was very knowable about the history of Venice with the Doge who ruled along with surrounding countries as they related to Venice, she provided pictures as she talked so we could envision what it looked like back in the history. We went to the main church, museums, walk around the city to other important location like the opera house. It was a four-hour tour with a break for lunch. I would recommend Guida T. as an excellent tour guide.

This tour a great way to see several of the key sites around Venice. We had two different guides during the day (Natalia and Chiara), both were knowledgeable and professional. My wife and I really liked to the high level of detail given by both guides that were happy to answer any questions. Our time spent at St Marks Basilica and the Doge's Palace were enhanced by having a guide. I would very much recommend to anyone for their first day in Venice on holiday.

The guide was very knowledgeable and even had our children get involved. Our guide rearranged our tour to accommodate the high water and everything worked perfectly. We were able to see all of the attractions thanks to her.

The trip was great and the tour guide excellent. I only wish they had said that they were going to put 6 people in one gondola as I would have paid extra to be just my wife and I alone on our 40th wedding anniversary. Weather was perfect

SUMMARY: The morning part of the tour was horrible, but the afternoon part (The Doges' Palace) was great! Overall Poor because of the morning. First, the meeting point: if you take a water taxi, the disembarkation point puts you right at the meeting point. If you walk from the west, when you enter the piazza San Marco, you CANNOT SEE THE TWO LARGE COLUMNS. There are, however, literally HUNDREDS of columns around the piazza, so we (and several other people) were waiting inside the piazza on the south side. When we did not see the tour guide after a while, I eventually found the other side, so when we arrived, we were 4 minutes late. Our tour guide was angry about it, never introduced herself, argued that the Large columns are "the only columns here", and generally made the tour unpleasant to begin with. Then, the basilica tour skipped a LOT of the basilica. The walking part was okay, but the gondola ride was HORRIBLE! First, a gondola ride should be pleasant, romantic, and comfortable. However, on this tour, they cram five people in one gondola, which means only two people get to sit together comfortably, and the others have to sit on crappy little stools and get a generally poor experience. The gondolier on our boat provided a little bit of information, but several of the other people on the tour said their gondolier was on his ear bud the whole time and said absolutely nothing to them throughout the ride. The next day, we hired a completely separate gondola to take a ride with just the two of us, and it was fantastic! DO NOT TAKE THIS TOUR FOR THE GONDOLA RIDE, because it was a complete waste of money. Again, the afternoon tour of the Doges Palace was interesting, beautiful, and informative, and the tour guide was wonderful. She is the only reason this tour was not rated overall as ZERO stars!