Definately book this before you go. Obtaining your ticket from the machine was ultra easy. We used the waterbus as our transfer to the hotel, and our trip to Murano and Burano, cutting out both those costs. It was really part of the Venice experience.

The ACTV local transport pass is a must if you want to get around Venice and explore. It is great value and you can also use the buses to get to Mestre, etc. We opted for a two day pass and explored all around the main island (even with our luggage when we first arrived) and also got across to Lido and Murano. Very highly recommended.

We booked our transport to Venice last minute which is why we opted for this service (first choice would have been Mestre but it was full). As a last resort this option was great as much cheaper than parking on Venice island and we loved arriving in Venice by boat. At the time of our visit (Aug ‘23) the main parking at Mestre + return travel into Venice would have cost €23 for our family of 4 and this parking cost €44 Euros including return boat trip so was more expensive overall. It was also slower as the boats only depart every hour and of course the boat is a slower way to travel than train/bus/tram. However we managed to time our departures well so had little waiting time at both ends and enjoyed the boat trip. We didn’t mind the disembarkation location on the north side of Venice as we wanted to explore on foot but this could be inconvenient for some. The car park is manned 24hrs and we had a car boot full of our belongings and everything was fine on our return.