Alilaguna, water taxi or vaporetto from Venice airport: compared

Three different services, often confused

Searches for “vaporetto from Venice airport”, “waterbus to Venice” and “Venice water taxi” get mixed up, but they refer to three different services. Before comparing prices, be clear about what you’re buying.

• Alilaguna is a scheduled public transport service run by a private company — the only one linking Marco Polo airport by water, on a timetable, with the historic centre, the Lido and Murano. The boats are enclosed motor launches with fixed stops, and you pay for a seat.
• The water taxi is a motorboat with a city licence. It can be private (the boat is yours and you pay per boat) or shared (you buy a seat on a boat that drops off at several hotels).
• The vaporetto is the ACTV service linking the city and the islands. No ACTV vaporetto leaves from the airport: ACTV’s Marco Polo services are road buses. ACTV tourist passes also exclude Alilaguna lines, and using them on airport buses requires a supplement.

In short: if you’re looking for a “vaporetto from the airport”, what you want is almost always Alilaguna.

The Alilaguna lines and the areas they serve

Two lines leave Marco Polo all year, plus a seasonal one. Picking the right one can save you half an hour on the water.

• Blue line (all year): from the airport it goes to Murano Colonna and Fondamente Nove, then Ospedale and Bacini, then Lido S. M. Elisabetta and Arsenale; it continues to San Zaccaria and San Marco Giardinetti, then Zattere and Giudecca Stucky, finishing at Tronchetto and the station (Santa Lucia). It’s the line for Murano, the Lido, Castello, San Marco and the Giudecca.
• Orange line (all year): after the airport it stops at Madonna dell’Orto and Guglie, enters the Cannaregio Canal and runs down the Grand Canal calling at San Stae, Rialto and Sant’Angelo, as far as Ca’ Rezzonico and Santa Maria del Giglio: the line for anyone staying near Rialto or on the Grand Canal.
• Red line (warmer months only): from the airport it reaches Murano and Fondamente Nove, then Ospedale and Bacini, the Lido, and ends at San Zaccaria and San Marco Giardinetti. Alilaguna presents it as a seasonal summer line running from April to November; the summer timetable on its website, however, runs from late April to late October. Check the current timetable before relying on it.

There’s also a Green line, but it’s a commercial island excursion, not an airport connection.

Waterbus tickets, luggage and timetables

A single airport ↔ Venice trip costs €18, a return €32. The return leg must be used within 30 days and validated again. The €15 price still found in many online guides is out of date. To Murano it’s €10 each way.

The ticket covers one suitcase and one piece of hand luggage, which can be a backpack, a bag or a laptop case. The suitcase’s total dimensions must not exceed 160 cm. Each extra or oversized item costs €4 and must be paid for before boarding. Folded pushchairs and shopping trolleys travel free.

For longer stays there are time passes: €40 for 24 hours, €60 for 48, €80 for 72. They’re valid on every line except the Green. They only add up if you plan to use Alilaguna in the city too, for example between the station and San Marco (€10 a trip).

On timetables there’s only one rule: check the official timetable for the day. According to Alilaguna’s published summer timetable, the Blue line leaves the airport from 05:20 to 00:20 and the Orange from 08:35 to 23:05. Winter times are different. In the middle of the day, again on the summer timetable, both lines leave the airport roughly every 30 minutes; early in the morning Blue departures are less frequent.

At the airport, the Alilaguna ticket offices are in the dock area (the darsena), where the boats moor. From arrivals it’s a 7–10 minute walk along a covered walkway. It’s the same route you take for the water taxi, which moors at separate piers.

The same waterbus sold on Tiqets and GetYourGuide

You can also buy the Alilaguna ticket online. On Tiqets it costs €18, the same as at the ticket office, and it was rated 4.3 from over a thousand reviews at the time of checking. It covers all three airport lines and, obviously, doesn’t include delivery to your hotel.

One practical detail: according to the Tiqets listing, the voucher on your phone must be exchanged for a paper ticket, to be validated before boarding. At the airport you exchange it at the Alilaguna desk in the arrivals hall or at the dock ticket office; in the city, at the San Marco ticket office near the Giardini Reali. Opening hours are given on the listing. You can cancel free of charge until 23:59 the day before.

On GetYourGuide the same service is called “Boat Transfer to/from Marco Polo Airport with 3 Routes”. It also costs €18 and is rated 4.4. The title doesn’t say so, but it’s an Alilaguna ticket, not a taxi: you travel on the same scheduled boat, with the same stops.

Choose whichever platform you prefer for payment and customer service: the boat is the same.

There’s also a little-advertised link. Bucintoro Viaggi, which sells shared airport water taxis on several platforms, states that it belongs to the Alilaguna group. So the same group sells both the cheap option and the pricier one. The details are in our profiles of Alilaguna and Bucintoro Viaggi.

The “vaporetto from the airport”: bus plus boat

If you want to use ACTV services, it’s two legs. First you take a bus to Piazzale Roma, then the vaporetto (line 1 or 2 along the Grand Canal).

• ACTV Aerobus + vaporetto: the combined Aerobus + 90 minutes on the urban network ticket costs €18, the same as Alilaguna.
• ATVO bus + vaporetto: the direct ATVO bus costs €12 and takes about 20 minutes. Luggage, with no limit, goes in the hold. The vaporetto then costs €9.50, for a total of €21.50.

The vaporetto allows 3 bags per person, each up to 150 cm in total dimensions. Line 1, however, is very crowded between the station and San Marco, and with large suitcases Alilaguna is usually easier. If your hotel is at Piazzale Roma, at the station or in Mestre, you don’t need a boat at all: the bus is enough. All the details are in the guide to and from the airport by road.

Side by side, point by point

Two figures to read carefully. The Alilaguna times come from the official summer timetable: about an hour to Rialto on the Orange line, 75–85 minutes to San Marco Giardinetti on the Blue and nearly an hour and a half to the Zattere. The Tiqets listing says 50 minutes, which at best applies to the first stops: don’t use it to plan around an appointment.

The shared taxi isn’t always faster either: the listing for the best-selling transfer says 50–100 minutes, because the boat drops passengers at several hotels. If you’re the last off, the advantage over Alilaguna can vanish. We explain it on the page about the shared water taxi.

The maths by group size: when the taxi pays for itself

The question isn’t whether the taxi costs more than Alilaguna: it always does. The question is how much more each of you pays, and what you get for it.

The calculation uses the private Tiqets taxi at about €180 per boat, which carries up to 6 people according to the listing. For four people that’s €45 each against €18: €27 more per person.

In return, if you’re heading for San Marco, you arrive about three-quarters of an hour earlier, with no intermediate stops and no waiting for the next departure. And if your hotel has a private landing on the canal, you don’t drag suitcases up and down bridges.

For two, the difference rises to €72 each. Here the €39 shared taxi makes more sense, as long as you accept variable journey times. For six, the same boat at about €180 costs €30 each. That’s less than a shared seat, but still €12 a head more than Alilaguna.

Under the Comune tariff, the airport ↔ historic centre trip costs €110 per boat. Commercial offers sit above that figure, and the gap is documented for both resellers and consortia. Full prices are on our water-taxi prices page.

When Alilaguna is the wrong choice

Alilaguna is ideal if you travel light and are staying near a stop. In these situations, though, the taxi is worth the extra:

• More than one large suitcase each. Each extra item costs €4, and when the boat is full, finding room isn’t guaranteed. Some travellers report waiting for the next departure at an intermediate stop.
• Hotel far from the stops. If 15 minutes on foot over two stepped bridges await you after landing, you pay for the saving in effort.
• Arriving in the middle of the night. After the last departure only the taxi and the bus are left. On the taxi, between 22:00 and 06:00, the city tariff adds a €10 surcharge. See our page on the water taxi at night.
• Small children or limited mobility. Many Alilaguna boats are accessible, but you still land at a public pier. The taxi can get closer to where you’re going.

On the other hand, travelling alone with normal luggage, paying more than double for the shared taxi makes little sense if your hotel is near an Orange or Blue line stop.

Who should choose what

If you’ve already settled on the taxi, the full route from baggage belt to pier is in the guide water taxi from Marco Polo airport.

Frequently asked questions