Ateliers — Local services in Venice

We were scheduled for a gondola ride on our 20th Anniversary and our daughter was with us. We waited at our assigned time and we were never greeted or or assured we were in the correct location. Others had assigned times 45 minutes before us and the man kept grumbling there was nothing he could do about it. At least two different tour groups of 20 people were loaded before the ones with assigned times. Once it was our turn we got in the boat and the gondolier barked at me to sit in the chair, so I did. Then he got very short and said, “the other side”, so I sat on the chair opposite my husband and then he yelled and pointed, “THAT CHAIR!” Then, I went to get out and a different man took my hand to help me out and I stepped up and he got short and yelled, “no, there!” I was really looking forward to this and was horrified at the way we were treated. It was not a language problem, but a communication problem because I knew some Italian. Do not book with this company unless you enjoy spending money to waste time and...

First, they had no record of our booking! Made to wait 20 minutes past our start time. Told to sit and wait with a group party, when I insisted we had booked through Acampora Travel for a private tour, the boss, who looked like a young Mafioso reluctantly agreed to phone. After lots of shouting he just gestured us to get on one of the gondolas, with an old decripit gondolier with long grey greasy hair, with a mask totally covering his face. Completely unnecessary! He said nothing on the tour. Took us up a back alley on a square route, out into to Grand Canal where he had a shouted conversation with a bloke in a water taxi, before heading straight back. 28 minutes! My wife who had been looking forward so much to this experience was totally dismayed and let...

We went to the pick up point to wait for the Gondola ride. We had purchased the tickets in advance here in the United States. It was for a private Gondola ride. It would have been nice to know that we could have arranged to have someone serenade us along the ride. We found out later that it was an extra €160.00. There was confusion with the tickets that we purchased and they were unfamiliar with them. We thought that we might have to wait for a separate tour guide. As the time passed our 3 pm pick up we inquired again. This time someone called the company that sold us the tickets and cleared up the confusion and we were on our way down...