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I booked over the Internet, received a confirmation and PNR via e-mail, printed my e-mail, on arrival, went to the Hello counter at arrival hall, no one can speak English there. Really a big hello to Hello Venice, no one at the kiosk can speak English at international airport arrival hall of a predominantly tourist town?
All the agent could say was 'No English, machine!' At the end, I was unable to redeem the tickets that I purchased.
The Venice Pass covers all your transport needs while in town: find the Venice Pass that matches your trip, including one, two or three day options of local transport and adding, if you want, a Round Trip ticket from the Airport for maximum flexibility and savings. Venice City Pass Classic 24/48/72 hours. The Venezia Unica tourist pass is a stored-value 'culture card' that gives free admission to the Doge's Palace and a number of museums without standing in a ticket line. In addition, you get discounts at various other museums and exhibitions in Venice. The pass is good for seven days from the first day of use.
I also went to two other outlets near San Marco and the agents there - Internet purchase, we don't know anything. We have tickets here for sale if you want to buy. Hello Venice does not have a telephone no. I asked the hotel concierge to help. At the end, I sent an e-mail and it took a week for a reply. I have left Venice by then.
What a rip off. I was really surprised too as this was supposed to be a semi official agency. Hello Venice = Tourist Trap. :- Message from Tripadvisor staff -:-Tripadvisor staff has removed this post because it did not meet Tripadvisor's forum guidelines with regards to off-topic chat. Please limit conversations to subject matter directly related to the host forum. For example: when in the London forum, please stick to topics that relate to travel within the London Metropolitan Area.Off-Topic Chatter is a forum for discussions gone afield from the topic of travel.
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I had a not dissimilar experience when i was in venice last year, having booked my actv vap passes in advance, went to the automatic dispenser, typed in the code and got a message back saying not recognised. I have used these machines before with no problem. I then went to the vap kiosk at s stefano, s marco, s lucia and the zattere, eventually to the vap office in p roma, and queued for ages. They all just shrugged at me saying they didnt speak any english at all and that they couldnt explain why the code wasnt working, I know they are busy and I am horribly aware my italian is poor, but I was perfectly polite and received nothing but rudeness and was given no help at all. I finally went to the p roma vap stop and handed the printout to the operative there who was having a ciggie break outside her little booth. I said in my ghastly italian that i was having problems and couldnt get my vap pass. She said to me that the machines were down, and the computers were down and to hang on a moment.
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She went into the booth and managed to extract the vap passes no problem. I had wasted almost an entire day, spent money on vap tickets all over the city and received such a stream of unhelpful vibes from everybody i spoke to.
A week later when i returned to venice and with much trepadation tried the automatic machine for my second set of passes it worked perfectly well. I had the same bad experience with HelloVenezia. The details:- Arrived at the train station and went to the automated kiosk to pick up 72-hr ACTV pass, bathroom cards, and a wifi card. Machine didn't work.- went to window and gave them my PNR: they gave me the vaporetto pass but said 'you need to go to the San Marco office to pick up your bathroom cards and your wifi card.' - later that day made it to San Marco kiosk and got bathroom cards, and they said, 'We don't have wifi cards.
We don't have anything to do with wifi' - and I showed them my itinerary, with the paid wifi purchase, and they said 'I don't know what that is. We are not connected (the wifi carrier). You need to go to the tourist office right behind us.' (and mind you, I speak Italian so I'm doing all this in Italian, thinking it will get someone to help me out - no such luck)- I go to the main tourist office at Giardini Reali, and they say 'This is Hello Venice. But there's another San Marco Kiosk just over there, try that one.' - I go to the 2nd Hello Venice kiosk at Giardini Reali and they say 'We don't have wifi cards, I have never heard of this.'
And I'm showing the lady my Hello Venice printed itinerary which shows the things I've paid for, and she says 'You have to go to the train station office to get wifi cards then.' And i said, 'I went there and they told me to come here.' She said, 'Then you have to go to, they will have them.' At this point, I've been all over the island already and I've only been here a few hours. Thank god I know my way around because I've been here a few times before: if you were a standard tourist who was here for the first time, you would've given up by now.So I go to Piazzale Roma's kiosk, where they say 'Hello Venice doesn't have wifi cards, we don't do wifi.'
I explain that Ferrovia sent me to San Marco who sent me to tourist office who sent me to the other San Marco Hello Venice kiosk who sent me to Piazzale Roma, and they say, 'Sorry, but we don't have wifi cards. This doesn't exist, there is no such thing at hello venice.' I show them the Hello Venice printed itinerary, which shows that I pre-paid for it, and they say 'I don't know what that is.' I email several different support email addresses attached to Hello Venice over the period of the next week, and never got a single reply. I am now disputing their charges with my credit card company.I did notice that Venice Connected (the wifi service itself) pops up as an option on the phone and laptop, but after going through the registration and payment screens, the site just resets itself and doesn't allow you to actually connect, log on, or pay for the service.Lesson learned: use Hello Venice.ONLY.
for the ACTV pass, nothing else.Kerry.
I will be in for 3 days this June with my wife and 17 year-old son. After researching the transit passes, it looks like the best idea is to get a Rolling Venice Card and discounted ACTV pass for him, and to order ACTV passes for us from the Venice Connected web site.My question is this: we will be arriving by train at the Santa Lucia station, can I take care of all the passes at the Hello Venezia office there? Get his Rolling Venice card, buy his discounted ACTV pass, and turn in our PNR codes for ACTV passes.It would be very nice to do this all in one place and then get on the vaporetto to the hotel. Hopefully that is the right place!
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