Venice: Doge's Palace Guided Tour With Tickets & Optional Gondola
Venice, Italy
- 2 hours 30 minutes (approx.)
- Mobile ticket
- Offered in: English
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Overview
The Doge’s Palace is one of Venice’s premier sights, but the vast size of the palace and the long line to enter are daunting. With this guided tour, zip past the crowds with fast-track admission and cover the entire palace without feeling overwhelmed by the insights of your guide. Learn about this sumptuous building’s historic and cultural significance and admire its highlights.
- Save time with priority entrance at a scheduled time
- Visit with a guide to tour the entire complex in just hours
- Delve into Venetian art and history by visiting a cultural treasure
- Upgrade to include a 30-minute gondola ride on the Grand Canal
What's Included
- Skip the line tickets for Doge's Palace
- 2 hours guided tour at a relaxed pace
- Expert local guides for insider knowledge
- Admission to Correr Museum, National Archeological Museum, and Biblioteca Marciana
- 30-minute Grand Canal gondola ride (if option selected)
- Transport to the meeting spot
- Guided Tour of the Correr Museum
Meeting and Pickup
Meeting point
- Colonna di San MarcoP.zt San Marco, 30124 Venezia VE, Italy
We meet in Saint Mark’s Square near the waterfront by the two large columns. Our guide will be under the one with the winged lion on top. Your guide will have a signboard that says, “Walks In Europe.”
End point
This activity ends back at the meeting point.Itinerary
1
Piazza San Marco
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included
2
Palazzo Ducale
1 hour 30 minutes • Admission Ticket Included
3
Bridge of Sighs
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included
4
Museo Correr
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Included
5
Grand Canal
30 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
Additional Info
- Confirmation will be received at time of booking
- Not wheelchair accessible
- Near public transportation
- Most travelers can participate
- Please note that if you take the 14:00 (2 pm) tour, Correr Museum will be closed before your tour finishes. Therefore, you will have Correr tickets for the next day.
- Please note that carrying any type of weapon or sharp objects, such as a knife, is not allowed for this tour.
- Clients must arrive at the meeting point 15 minutes before the start of the tour. This is due to the timed entry of the tickets.
- Please be advised that it is not possible to join the tour after it has commenced.
- If you choose the optional gondola ride, your guide will lead you to the pier at the end of the Doge’s Palace tour.
- Please note that the gondola ride is shared with other participants from your tour, just like it’s always been in Venetian tradition.
- Each gondola accommodates up to 5 guests. If your group is larger, you’ll be placed on separate gondolas.
- Sites visited during this tour are subject to occasional closures due to holy observances, high tides, and flooding. If a site closes, your guide will tour the exterior of the site. If time permits, you will be contacted before your tour. For last-minute closures, modifications may be communicated at the tour start time.
- Tips/gratuities (for your guide) are always appreciated.
- This tour/activity will have a maximum of 16 travelers
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Cancellation Policy
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
Traveler Photos
Reviews
4.6
based on 196 reviews
Sort by: Most insightful
Anna was very knowledgeable and kind, was everything just perfect. We can recommended for everybody.
Our tour of Doges Palace was exceptional and the Gondola Ride was amazing!! Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and we did not have to wait in the long line for the Gondola Ride.
The tour was amazing! Alex was incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, and he had a great passion for Venice. He answered all the questions we had and truly made the history of the palace come to life.
The Dodge was closing early which was not disclosed so you couldn’t stay to see the museum after the tour. They should have let people know when purchasing the tour to schedule on a different day.
Very knowledgeable and courteous guide. Answers questions without hesitation in a clear and concise manner.
Was a very nice tour she was very informative and very patient with some other people in the group that were a bit demanding
Viator told us and another couple in our group that the St Marks Basicila was included in the tour and when we received tickets it did not. Extremely disappointing. We paid too much for what we received. When talking with another family from Wisconsin, they were told the same thing as us. When I was paying it said St Marks was included and when we received the tickets it wasn’t. We were unable to buy separate tickets for St Marks for that day so we didn’t get to go inside. Somehow, the person in charge of tour could have arranged for us to do the church tour and then Gondola ride but didn’t seem to care.
Response from Host, Jun 2026
Hi Judy,
As you can see, the tour you wrote the review is for the Doge's Palace, and it is not for San Marco's Basilica. They are two separate sites.
You booked a tour that visited only the Doge's Palace.
This was a great tour. Our tour guide, Clare (from France), was so full of energy and told us great history stories. Even my 12 and 14 year olds stayed interested the whole tour!
Excellent tour - instructions to meet guide very clear and really easy to find them. Guide very knowledgeable and friendly. We had a little introduction to St. Mark's Square initially, then the tour of the Doges Palace which was quite comprehensive and finally a little gondola ride. We would definitely say it was good value for money and very well organised. We thoroughly enjoyed it!
Great visit m. The tour guide is amazing. I think her name was Hilaria or Lalaria. There was also a helpful assistant Laura who escorted us to the tour. I highly recommend. Tour guide was extremely knowledgeable
About the history of the building and the history of Venice.
This was such a fun and informing Tour. Claire, our Tour guide was engaging, energetic and very informative. The inside of the palace is so huge and with this Tour, we understood the history and a great explanation of the artwork. It was well worth it.
Visiting the Doge Palace without a guide would be a shame. The place is so huge and there is so much history that a guide will add so much to a visit.
Good guide with excellent information. Tour of St Marks Square helpful as pre palace tour. Paced well…overall very good.
We loved our Doge Palace tour because of our Tour Guide, Sandra. She was so knowledgeable about all of the art, art history and architecture of the Doge Palace. We learnt so much in two hours. We highly recommend this tour and especially Sandra. The Palace itself is amazing.
Sandra was great - very knowledgeable of Venetian history and art. Was efficient and enjoyable. Highly recommend.
Very interesting, definitely worth visiting and Claire our tour guide made a big effort to make everyone feel relaxed
Kristina was fabulous! Knowledgeable about history and entertaining. Beautiful art and architecture.
Ilaria was so insightful on all things Doge palace and St. Marks church. The tour showed us all the passages and paintings in the palace and the church. Through showing us the history of the buildings and their significance for its time in history. She also gave us a history of Venice and the impact it had with Italy and the world.
Our tour guide was great! She was very energetic and kept the experience fun and informative. Gondola was a nice treat at the end.
Gondola ride was wonderful! The rest was extremely boring. We would’ve like to hear more about each room we entered in the palace. Instead we heard in great detail about each painting down to the type of brush strokes. Our group plus others left the tour early.
This tour was very informative. Wear good shoes, lots of walking. Guide was very good on keeping to a timetable.
Our tour guide was so high energy and fun and gave a great tour! We learned a lot of information and our tour guide took opportunities to take pictures of each of us with some of the highlights. I'd highly recommend the tour.
The Doges Palace is outstanding from every point of view and Claire was a fantastic tour guide. She shares her knowledge as well as her incredible energy with us. She adds humor which makes the tour even more enjoyable.
Absolutely beautiful palace at great pictures didn’t feel like our group stayed together and people were walking in between. It would’ve been better for the tour to stay together as a group and have a photo opportunities and instead of falling behind to take pictures I felt like she talked really fast even though we had an earpiece in to hear her
Our guide Claire made the tour interesting and fun. Have been there before but she provided a great amount of details that I did not know. Thank you Claire.
Very good tour of the Doge's Palace. Our guide Claire was very knowledgeable, engaging and full of beans! The gondola tour was short but nice.
It was a great experience to learn about Doge's Palace through a walking tour. The guide was extremely knowledgeable and she made it exciting and interesting. She had a wealth of information about Doge's Palace. She also was very flexible as some of the tourist had to stop during the tour to take a break or take a gondola ride. I highly recommend this tour for everyone who wants to know more than the average tour book.
We LOVED this tour and highly recommend booking this if you want a more in-depth understanding of the Doge’s Palace, the historic progression of Venice, and its people. Alejandro, our tour guide, is native to Venezia and has a command of Italian history (& beyond) that was incredible! His passion for teaching was evident and my hubby & I enjoyed this tour so much. We added the Gondola ride which was nice too (but couldn’t compare to the tour lol!).Thx!
If coming off a cruise ship aviator should let people know it takes over an hour to get to the meeting point. We were not aware of that and just made it in time for our tour. Also it cost us an e tea 12 E per person to get get to the meeting point.
Good meeting spot they use a flag to signify where they are. Very informative. Nice to skip the line into the palace
Member Pricing
From
$109.14
per personWas $114.89(-5%)
up to 24 hours before the experience starts (local time)
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