Venice Day Trip - How We Spent 36 Hours in This Unique City

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We spent about 36 hours in Venice on our way home from a family trip recently. It's the perfect sweet spot for a positioning flight if you're looking for cheap business award flights from Europe to the US (vs Israel to the US). You literally cannot spend than one full day there, unless you stay for Shabbos. Read on to see what we did, how we spent our time, where we stayed, and of course, how we used points to cover most of it!

Arriving in Venice:

We had just spent 4 beautiful days in Israel and we're on our way home. Venice was the perfect stopover, since it's not a trip in and of itself, has direct flights on Elal from Israel, and I was able to find business class award flights from Venice to NYC at a reasonable rate! Plus, Venice is a 1 or 2 day trip at the max, which makes it perfect as a "stopover city". Keep reading to see why.

We flew Elal from TLV to VCE on Sunday evening. Our flight left Israel at 6PM, which allowed us to eat lunch in Jerusalem and dinner at the airport, thus avoiding any meal conflicts. We used 42,625 Flying Blue miles plus $113.61 to book this flight. You can transfer miles from any of the 4 major banks to Flying Blue to book this. If you're booking for a child under 12, Flying Blue includes a 25% discount for their reservation, a win for families!

Follow directions in the terminal until you see this desk with a sign for the Alilaguna ferry

Our flight landed in Venice at 8:55 PM. At the Venice airport, once you go through passport control and collect your luggage, you want to make your way to the boat transfer as quickly as possible. With running, it took us 10 full minutes to get from baggage claim all the way onto the ferry, including purchasing tickets. You can purchase tickets at a machine or desk right where you get on to the ferry. Just follow signs to the Alilaguna "A" Orange line and make your way there as quickly as possible.

The A (orange line) ferry runs every 30 minutes and costs 18 Euro. You can find more info here. Children under 6 are free. Although there are other ways to get in to the city center, this is the most cost and time effective way with the least amount of bridges to cross or transfers. If you have luggage or strollers, this is the way to go. Do not take an Uber. You'll have to walk a LOT or transfer to another boat.

For the hotel we stayed at, we rode the ferry to the Guglie station, which was a 4 minute walk to our hotel. We only had to cross one short bridge. As I always advise, use Google Maps! Check walking times before and after the ferry, and get off at the station closest to your hotel. You can also always ask the staff for help figuring out where you need to go.

Hotel:

After getting off the boat, we made the short walk to our hotel, the Rimon Place Kosher hotel in the Jewish Ghetto. Check in was… interesting. Nobody was at the check in desk, and one other person from our flight was waiting for their room as well. However, unlike our experience with an early morning check in at a hotel in Israel last year, the Rimon Place hotel check in staff left a phone number to call. We got in touch with them right away and the staff member helped us find our keys that he had left for us. They graciously allowed us to access our room right away and complete check in the next morning. What a relief after our trip! Nobody likes arriving exhausted to a hotel only to find out they can't check in and hit the pillow!

We booked 2 nights (Sunday till Tuesday) in a "Superior Double Room, 1 Queen bed" using 47,000 Chase points plus $301.05 inside the Chase travel portal. The total cost would have been $1,012.92. I put ~$300 on my Sapphire Reserve card to trigger the travel credit. The rest was covered by Chase points in the portal that was still grandfathered in at a 1.5 times redemption rate. Sadly, Chase now only gives you 1x for standard hotels (more if it's an Edit hotel, which the Rimon Place is not). So, 47,000 times 1.5x = 70,500. Divide that by 100 (each point is a cent) = $705. Add $301.05 and taxes that must be paid in person at the hotel, and you get to the total of $1,012.92.

The room was GORGEOUS! It is a boutique hotel with around 23 rooms, so we we were expecting something slightly above average, and potentially cramped. We were completely blown away! The room was spacious, well designed, thoughtfully decorated, and had an incredible view of the canals!

The bathroom was luxurious, with stunning fixtures, a towel warming rack, and personal amenities that actually smelled good.

Location could not be better. It's located in the same square as Chabad and the Baghetto restaurant. It's steps away from major tourist hotspots, and plenty of water boat options. But the shining feature of this hotel is the Kosher breakfast. It's not included with all reservations, so if you want it, make sure you're booking a rate that includes breakfast. Although I've had better hotel breakfasts (in Israel, of course), being able to eat anything nutritious at the hotel before starting your day is a game changer. We prioritize that so much, that on trips where hotel breakfast is not an option, we will bring along cereal and milk just so we can start our day right away, rather than spend an hour going to get food.

After settling in, we quickly washed up and went to bed. At this point we had been on the go from 1:30 PM and it was close to midnight. We had one day to see all there is to see in this unique city. We weren't about to ruin it by being sleep deprived.

Spending the Day in Venice:

We woke up bright and early Monday morning and headed straight to breakfast. The dining area was clean, polished, and quintessentially European. There were cereal dispensers, breads, and a coffee machine available for use. Kitchen staff brought out an assortment of pastries, lox, and cheeses to our table. We were also offered eggs, cappuccino, fresh squeezed orange juice, and fruit salad. Like I mentioned, it wasn't super impressive. However, it was enough to count as breakfast and get our day started.

After wrapping up breakfast, we headed out to explore Venice. We went into this little trip knowing two things for sure; we wanted to experience riding the boats on the canals and visit the glass factories on Murano island. Riding the boat to Murano killed both birds with one stone. Since the factory we chose to visit only had afternoon tours available, we spent the morning strolling around Venice, walking the bridges, admiring the canals, and taking a ton of iconic pictures.

We saw the Gondolas, visited too many souvenier shops to count, and pointed out the garbage collection boats as well as the amazon delivery boats. We spent close to 2 hours walking the length and breadth of the Venice canals and it was fascinating.

Our glass factory tour was scheduled for 3:00. Google Maps was showing a 35 minute boat ride to get there. Not wanting to take chances, we decided to head there early and wait there, if necessary. Around 12:00 we made our way back to the Jewish Ghetto to get lunch at Gam Gam Goodies. In addition to basic snacks, candy, and drinks, they also offer some freshly prepared dairy foods, including pizza. We ordered a falafel wrap, scrambled eggs wrap, and personal pie. We were able to take it to the Chabad shul, a 5 minute walk, to sit down and eat. The food was incredible! Highly recommend. The pizza was freshly made in front of our eyes, which was cool too.

After lunch, we headed to the Wave Murano Glass Factory for our tour. Using Google Maps, we followed directions to take the 4.2 (purple line) ferry to Murano. After about a 40 minute boat ride, we arrived to the factory over an hour early. We might've been too exhausted to properly look around the area, but it seemed like everything was the same. A bunch of glass factories, with similar offerings. So we spent the next hour just hanging around, doing mostly nothing.

When researching glass factories to visit, we came across one other recommendation, the OMG factory. That costs 5 Euro to enter but there's no official tour. The Wave Glass factory is free to enter, and you can watch them make glass live from behind a bar. You get so close up, you can feel the heat of the furnaces and see the sweat dripping off the glassblowers' faces. For a 29 Euro per adult fee (free for children under 7), you can get a behind the scenes tour of the factory. We booked that 3:00 tour. Although we were able to watch the glass making up close right next to the glass blowers, you can honestly get pretty much the same view for free. We don't regret paying the 60ish Euros for our tour, but knowing what we know now, we probably wouldn't do it again. Unless you have a strong interest in knowing how glass is formulated and getting right in the middle of the action. Otherwise, just go visit for free and watch them make glass products in real time from behind the bar. The tour literally stands only about 2 feet closer than the free visit and watching them blow glass live was 95% of the interesting part of the tour. Is it worth 29 Euros per adult for the other 5%? You decide. They do also offer other experiences such as creating your own product, obviously for a higher fee. You can see all experiences here.

The tour lasted about an hour. After that, you walk through their gift shop, which is full of cool creations you can purchase. They offer to ship it to you for a fee. After our tour, we were exhausted, so using Google Maps, we found the next ferry riding back to Venice, headed to our hotel, and had some downtime before dinner.

At around 6:00, we headed to Gam Gam Meat for dinner. This too is just a couple steps from the Rimon Place hotel and the Jewish Ghetto. The other option for meat is Baghetto. We chose to eat at Gam Gam, since we had already experienced Baghetto meat in Rome two years prior. We wanted to try something new.

Gam Gam is situated on the canal and has the option of seating outside, right on the water. We tried it for about 2 minutes before requesting a table inside due to the wind. Luckily, we got the table right by the window facing the water and were still able to enjoy the view. The menu included a lot of incredible offerings, with a wide variety of foods. We ordered the hummus plate with meat, sirloin steak, taglietelle bolognese (deconstructed meatballs, basically), kebab, and of course french fries. For drinks we had lemon spritzers for the adults and lemonade for our 6 year old. Everything was delicious! The meat pasta was the best I've ever had in my life. The steak, too, was shockingly good, considering this was in Europe and it only cost 29 Euro (around $40). The hummus plate was wiped clean as well as the kebabs. We did walk away very full and skipped dessert. Our total bill was 97.50 Euro, which is about $110. I don't think you can get that kind of value at a restaurant in NYC and we were pleasantly surprised!

After dinner, we spent some time walking around the canals again before heading back to our hotel to rest again. We debated heading out later at night, but chose to stay in and call it a day. We packed up our luggage in preparation for our flight Tuesday and headed to bed.

Flying Home:

Tuesday morning, we once again had breakfast at the hotel. We had a flight to NYC at 1:20. Not knowing what to expect with the airport boat transfer, we decided to head there early and kill time at the airport instead. At this point, we had already seen all there is to see in Venice. Using Google Maps once again, we followed directions to the same A (orang line) ferry that rides to the airport.

On the way to the ferry stop, we made a quick pit stop at Dolce Ebraici for some baked goods. For the ferry you can purchase tickets on the boat, or at the airport once you get off the ferry. We tried doing it online on the boat, but it wouldn't go through. Once we got to the airport, staff directed us to the same ticket counter we visited upon arriving in Venice and we purchased our tickets there.

The boat transfer took a total of 1 hour from the scheduled departure time, until we got to the check in counters. The boat was scheduled for 9:44. It actually arrived at 9:50. We docked at the airport at 10:25 and got to the check in counter at 10:40. By 10:50, we were sitting in the lounge. Keep in mind that the lounge does sit before passport control, so when heading to your gate, leave a couple minutes time for that.

We flew Delta One from VCE to JFK. We booked this bucket list seat using 203,000 Flying Blue miles plus $860.39. Once again, we got a 25% discount on the points for our child, which was incredible. With our tickets, we had access to the Marco Polo lounge, which was ok. Nothing spectacular, but a good spot to sit, relax and watch planes take off and land. We spent about an hour here before heading to passport control and our gate. The Delta One experience was better than expected! For some reason, this product gets a lot of hate online from credit card points experts. Perhaps we had a uniquely great experience. I wouldn't know, since this was our first time experiencing it. The plane was a newer plane, so it had all the upgrades and fresh, comfy seats. There was lots of storage in the seat. The seats were also very private yet spacious. The amenity kit was nice, although I've had nicer ones from Emirates and Singapore airlines. The flight attendant was super attentive and gracious throughout the flight. The kosher food was one of the bests I've had in the sky. I find, in general, that the US airlines do Kosher meals better than foreign airlines. I had a similarly good experience with the kosher meal on United Polaris in 2022.

To Wrap it Up:

Overall, we had one full day in Venice and cannot think of anything else I would've wanted to do had we had more time. It really is the perfect day trip, and many people indeed do it as a day trip by train from other Italian cities, such as Rome. Food is reasonably priced and our hotel accommodations was great. And most importantly, it was a core memory city for our 6 year old. A city this unique is hard to forget, no matter the age. Top it off with an amazing business class flight for less than the price of economy and I cannot think of one thing I would do different if I went back. Maybe stay for Shabbos? The local stores do offer Shabbos meals. Now that would be dreamy....

Total Expenses:

Expense	Total Cash	Total Points	Cash Saved	Value Per Point
Flights	$860.39	203,500	$10,850.00	0.05
Hotel	$1.05	102,500	$2,050.00	0.02
Activities	$89.40
Food	$179.11
Transit	$170.17
Total	$1,300.12	$306,000.00	$12,900.00

Looking back, if you can find a flight with lower taxes and fees, then you'd pay less than $500 for a day trip to Venice! That's not too bad... But then again, you can also find a cheaper hotel on points and cheap on points economy flights... :)

Here are a few items that make our trips smoother:

• Good luggage! It pays to invest in a suitcase that glides smoothly so you’re not dragging 100 pounds of luggage over airport carpet. We have had the Travelers Choice carry on for over 3 years and love it. For this trip we got the 29” checked luggage size and it did not disappoint. You can shop the carry on size here and the checked luggage size here. 29” is perfect. Even when stuffed to capacity, it wasn’t overweight.

• Portable Charger: you don’t want to get stuck halfway through your day without battery. We love Anker. This portable charger is wireless and magnetic which makes it as inconspicuous as possible. Juice it up before you leave for the day and you’re all set. You can choose from 5 different colors. Shop the Anker wireless charger here.

  
  

• Lightweight Travel Backpack: you want to have a backpack that serves as a catch all on travel days and an easy wear for day trips once at your destination. We’ve had this waterproof travel backpack for over 5 years now. We love the fact that it’s waterproof (confirmed, since orange juice spilled on it during our flight), has the zipper on the inside (great for securing important documents like your passport), and is deceptively big. It looks small and compact but actually can hold enough snacks for a family of 6 on a 12 hour flight. Shop the backpack of every traveler’s dream here.

  
  

• Reusable Water Bottle: long days can get tiring and you should make sure to stay hydrated. We save money on buying water, by filling up a reusable water bottle in the morning at the breakfast buffet. Plus points if there’s ice. That keeps your water cold all day. Some cities, like Rome and Jerusalem, have free water refill stations all over! We love this time stamped water bottle. Large enough for all 3 of us to share. You can shop our favorite water bottle here.