Consorzio Motoscafi Venezia: our review

Who is behind the name

Consorzio Motoscafi Venezia is not a shipping company with its own fleet. It is a consortium trading externally: under a single name it groups several water-taxi licence holders and handles the commercial side, meaning the call centre, online bookings and allocating rides. The boats remain the property of the individual members.

On its website it says it has more than 100 water taxis available, all linked by GPS to a control room that dispatches calls. How many businesses or licences stand behind that number is not published. For scale: the City of Venice has capped the total number of water-taxi licences in the city at 250.

Its registered office is at Castello 4512. The founding year does not appear on the website; the first firm reference we have is 1998, the year it appears as registered with the Venice Chamber of Commerce, taken from a service that repackages chamber data rather than from the register itself.

A clarification worth making: on English-language forums the Consorzio is often called “the official” water-taxi company. It is not. The City issues the licences and sets the tariff, but it does not designate a single operator. Venezia Taxi, for example, is another consortium with staff at the airport. Consorzio Motoscafi is the largest and most-cited name, not the only authorised one.

Routes and prices on the online list

There is no fixed price list to browse: figures only appear inside the booking system, and that is where we read them, for a daytime transfer in autumn. These are prices prepaid online, not figures haggled over at the landing stage.

The Consorzio does not publish journey times per route. The times shown are those stated by equivalent private products sold on the platforms (30–40 minutes from the airport, 25–30 minutes from the station) and vary with your drop-off point and boat traffic; for Giudecca and the Lido we have no reliable figure.

The base fare covers up to 4 people and 4 suitcases. Beyond that, the Consorzio’s own surcharges apply, which differ from the city ones:

Watch the night band. The City tariff adds €10 from 22:00 to 06:00; the Consorzio charges €15 and extends the band to 07:00. If you land at 6:30 you therefore pay the private surcharge even though the city one would no longer apply. Options for late arrivals are on the page about the water taxi at night.

The bill split two, four, six ways

The price is per boat. For a couple, €160 means €80 each, twice the cost of a seat on a shared taxi, which on the platforms costs about €39 per person when we checked. For four the bill drops to €40 each: one euro more than the shared taxi, but with no stops at other passengers’ hotels.

Beyond four people the table is not enough, because surcharges kick in. Six people with six suitcases: €160 + 2 × €10 + 2 × €5 = €190, about €32 each. Eight people with eight suitcases: €160 + 4 × €10 + 4 × €5 = €220, about €28 each. For groups, the private taxi booked direct costs less than the shared one.

Why you pay more than the city fare

The Comune di Venezia tariff schedule (Giunta resolutions no. 227/2011 and no. 516/2011) sets €110 for the airport ↔ historic centre route. The Consorzio asks €160 online. From the station the gap is similar: from Piazzale Roma or the Ferrovia the City sets €50 to Rialto and €60 to San Marco, plus €5 if pick-up or drop-off is away from a taxi rank. The Consorzio asks €80 to your hotel.

This is not an irregularity. The city fare applies from taxi rank to taxi rank; the online product is door to door, prepaid, with the boat assigned in advance and your flight tracked. But you are paying for an extra service, not “the official fare”. How to read the public tariff is explained on the page about water-taxi prices.

How to book, and what happens if your flight is late

On delays, the Consorzio says it tracks flights automatically: there is no need to let them know. If a delay pushes your landing to between midnight and 7:00, its FAQ provide for passengers to be taken by road taxi to Piazzale Roma and continue by boat from there. Better to know that before you travel.

Tides have a practical effect. In its FAQ the Consorzio names a small group of hotels (including the Duodo, Splendid, Cavalletto, Saturnia and the two Bonvecchiati) whose private landing stage cannot be reached when the tide is too high or too low; in that case the boat pulls in as close as possible, within five minutes’ walk. That is not the operator’s fault, it is Venice. If you have heavy luggage, ask when booking whether your hotel is on that list, and read our tips on luggage and accessibility.

Two gaps. We found no published cancellation policy, either in the FAQ or in the checkout: ask for it in writing before you pay. And the “Excursions” page listed in the site map points to the home page, so for lagoon trips you are better off looking elsewhere, for example at the taxis and tours to Murano and Burano.

What travellers say

On Tripadvisor the Consorzio scores 4.1 out of 5 from 567 reviews. The recurring positives are punctuality, skippers arriving early, fast rebooking when a flight is late, precise directions on where to find the boat and no surprises on the final bill. One traveller in a couple, who paid €160 for two people and four suitcases, sums it up: no hidden costs, quick service.

The criticism, again in Tripadvisor reviews, is of two kinds. Availability: the same reviewer found everything sold out when booking two days ahead for a high-season arrival. And the difference between one boat and another: one reviewer describes an outbound trip on a dated, so-so motor launch and a return on an excellent boat. In a consortium the boats belong to individual members, and it shows. Other reviewers on the same platform mention uncommunicative staff at the airport landing stage and a route to the boats, on the upper level, that is not easy to find.

On the Rick Steves forum, used mainly by North American travellers, the Consorzio is the most consistently recommended operator, including as an alternative after bad experiences with resellers. The prices quoted in those threads, €115–140 from the airport, date back a few years, though: the current online list says €160.

Who it makes sense for, and who not

Alternatives to compare

The direct competitor is Venezia Taxi: €20 less from the airport, same price from the station, but with a €25 surcharge for the inner canals; on top of that, online booking is available only in the low season.

The private taxi on the platforms is sold by another supplier, Bucintoro Viaggi, which relies on a third consortium. On GetYourGuide it costs more, about €215 for a boat carrying up to 6 people, but comes with free cancellation up to 24 hours before. All the private options are compared on the page about the private water taxi.

If you travel light and time is not a problem, the Alilaguna waterbus costs €18 per person: the full comparison is in taxi or Alilaguna.

The products below are not the Consorzio’s: they are the alternatives bookable online with a stated cancellation policy.