Venice Gondola Ride and Serenade with Dinner

Venice, Italy

For the quintessential Venetian experience, take a serenaded gondola ride on the canals of Venice then enjoy dinner at Hostaria Ai Coristi Restaurant, near La Fenice Theater. You'll swoon to the magic of Venice on your evening gondola ride, then enjoy dinner at a Venice restaurant.

Likely to Sell-out! Serenaded gondola rides on the canals of Venice regularly sell out weeks in advance. Book ahead of time to avoid disappointment.

You'll be captivated by the glamor and elegance of Venice as you glide in a gondola on Venice's canals. One of the gondoliers will play music and sing songs throughout the 35-minute ride.

At the end of the gondola ride, disembark at Campo Santa Maria del Giglio, one of the most famous squares in Venice. From here, continue to Hostaria Ai Coristi Restaurant, near La Fenice Theater, for a two-course dinner.

USD $108.53

Traveler Reviews

Review by: LEEANNE K	November 2011
Great time, dinner was given, enjoyed the evening very much, would do it again....

Review by: Carmen G	November 2011
The gondola ride was fine, unfortunately a little late in the day and I was sitting facing backwards, so it was difficult to enjoy the view. After the ride was done, I didn't get any help to find the restaurant from the gondola people. Since the restaurant was not near the gondola place, it would have been nice to have someone to guide you to the restaurant. The food at the restaurant was decent, unfortunately the pasta was to salty and uneatable when the staff was notified, they didn’t offered any substitution. The second dish was fine, noting to write home about.

Review by: GARY G	November 2011
Excellent 45 minute Gondola ride with accordian player and soloist. A must to do!

Review by: Kim L	November 2011
A beautiful night out on the water. The dinner could be improved.

Review by: anthony t	November 2011
the gondola ride and serenade were truly awesome. dinner was fantastic, once we found the resteraunt

Review by: Mike	October 2011
The tour and dinner were both nice but a bit overpriced. The gondola is a shared ride with 6 people per gondola and about six gondolas traveling the same route. After the ride we inquired about dinner and we were told to go to the restaurant around the corner. After about 15 minutes of searching and asking directions we found the restaurant. Not around the corner. The meal allowed us to choose items off a set menu. The food and service was good. I think the package was a bit overpriced. If I had to do it again, I would just arrange the gondola ride on my own and then go to dinner.

Review by: barry r	October 2011
It was fun, some confusion as to where the restaurant was, Viator should address this for other travellers

Review by: Julie	September 2011
Very disappointing with 6 Gondolas going out together with only one having the serenade on it. The meal was average and as it was only 2 courses included, having paid for desserts, drinks and coffee on top it cost us another €46 so all in all a very expensive meal. The restaurant is also very difficult to find so if you do go find it first before you go on the Gondola.

Review by: Louis G	September 2011
Absolutely horrible. No agent from Viator to greet us and no one to tell us where restaurant was. Gondola ride is a farce. Six in a boat which should hold only 4 which necessitated my fiance sitting on a stool and I siiting at the bow. No instructions or guide to take us to the restaurant. We found the place because one of us was familiar with Venice. Food was good, but the extras were overpriced and we were refused dessert even though it was stated that we were to receive such. All I can say is that we were bitterly disappointed and feel that we were ripped off

Review by: Keith	September 2011
I would not recommend this tour/event. The dinner at the resturant was not good. It don't know if they use different resturants, but the one we ate at was not good. The gondola ride was nice--but a little ways from the resturant.

Review by: Lucilla L	September 2011
The Gondola singer wasn't actually in our boat, so we could hardly hear the music. The dinner was average, improvised street food, not great. .

Review by: KLT	September 2011
Gondola serenade was fine and enjoyable, However, the dinner was appalling!. after the gondola ride, we had to ask where the dinner was and find our own way to the restaurant which was complicated . no one offered to show us the way despite being part of the package. it took us more than 30 minutes to find it and the location and ambience was awful. we sat in small courtyard with littel light. service was good because there were hardly any other customers!. food was less than average. a nice romantic evening spoiled. not an occasion to dress for. Cost was certainly a rip off

Review by: Riva K	September 2011
The gondola ride was nice, but when we were having dinner, a big rat passed under our table, my wife was so terrified and that ruined our dinner and day.

Review by: ALAN M	September 2011
Just okay. Too many folks on each boat.

Review by: vishal	September 2011
choice of restaurant was poor gandola ride was OK _br/_ Its much better to take a ferry on teh outer circuit (may be route 4) and you are able to cover more serene landmarks

Review by: Larry	September 2011
Lovely experience. A must do. The only problem was it was hard to find the starting point for the Gondola ride and when we finished they refused to help us find where the restaurant was that we were suppose to dine at. A couple of Australian Women and I nearly gave up trying to find it as we thought it was a hoax. The restaurant was tucked right out of the way and without any decent maps of Venice to be found it was nearly impossible to find the restaurant. Once we did though it was wonderful. The next problem was the water buses cut back to minimum shifts from 8.30pm and we couldn't get back to our hotel for 1½ hours. A very tiring late night before having to leave very early the next morning.

Review by: Manuel C	August 2011
Had a great time, our gondola had the accordion player and singer, so we had no problem hearing them, they were great

Review by: Bill C	August 2011
Serenaded gondola ride was very nice. We rode with 3 other travelers (up to 5-6 per boat).

Review by: yelims77	August 2011
Exceptional serenading. Three-course dinner was delicious but very large portions. You will not go hungry.

Review by: Robert H	August 2011
Our singer's voice was fabulous, not to mention the fact that he was very sexy! Somehow, I hadn't realized that we would be 5 or 6 gondolas traveling together on the grand canal, but it was just fine. We met a really nice couple that we thoroughly enjoyed having dinner with!

Review by: Mrs. Ola L	August 2011
8 gondolas were pulled together with the serenader and accordion player inside one of them along with the passengers. I could not sit next to my husband which was quite disappointing and annoying. These were not made too clear at booking. The meal was also average when we could finally find our way to the restaurant. A map to the restaurant should be given to visitors at the very least as we taught the gondola ride would be finishing near the restaurant. I will rate the experience 2 out of 5 star

Review by: david p	August 2011
FANTASTIC!!!! best part of the trip

Review by: Adam B	July 2011
This was a very nice evening, directions for dinner were not very good. The Goldola staff did not care about helping us find our restaurant and we spent 30min search for it. A good way to have a Gondola ride however which is a must but is always going to be very expensive.

Review by: robmat	July 2011
The serenaded Gondola ride itself was fabulous but no thanks to the very poor tour organisation, no one meets you when you finally find the departure point and the gondola ride and dinner were all on the same voucher meaning the boatman had to go into a nearby hotel and photocopy the voucher, then the dinner at the almost impossible to find restaurant was terrible as well as having to pay E25 for a cheap bottle of lambrusca was outrageous, food was lousy, all in all we felt totally ripped off by this tour, forget booking tour and catch gondola ride yourself as many available for 1/4 of the price, but get a good Venice map, easy to get lost as we did many times with poorly signmarked streets and alleyways

Review by: Erica Flemming	July 2011
Did not realise beforehand that the gondola is shared between 6 people, might be worth getting your own one when you arrive in Veniceif you want something more romantic. However, the dinner was fantastic!

Review by: Carin Marais	July 2011
What a romantic experience. You get a total different view of Venice on a gondola. I would recommend this outing to anyone. The food was excellent and a big treat. The restaurant was easy to find, thanks for the map which was attatched to our itenerary. We enjoyed it very much. I only give it a 4 because it would have been much more romantic if we were only 2 in the Gondola, but it was clear from the beginning that we would share the gondola :-)

Review by: john	July 2011
was a joke. no information only location of gondola ride. they took my paper work so after ride it was up to us to find resturant after asking 5 people and 25 minutes we found it only to be told we need paper that gondola ride took from us in order to have dinner. so we did not get our dinner. this was worst tour of all

Review by: Rose	July 2011
This tour was Magnificinet! The girls and i enjoyed it, the music was good, the gondola ride perfect and the food was excellent, definatley a most for anyone visitig Venice,

Review by: Gladys	July 2011
If you want a romantic gondola ride, this is not the tour for you. They put 6 people in gondola and only one couple get to sit next to each other in a seat facing forward. The others have to sit separately and face sideways and backwards. Also, the serenader is not even on your gondola. They send out a group of gondole together and they just float in the water all bunched up trying the hear the guy sing, who is on another boat. Most of the time we couldn't hear him. The gondoliers and the guests just kept talking loudly and drowned out the serenader. Then they finally took off for a ride through a few smaller canals, which was the best part. We were disappointed with the restaurant location for dinner. I enjoyed the food. But my husband did not.

Review by: erniewig	June 2011
The Serenade gondola ride doesn't have anything to do with the dinner: the gondola ride with the servenade was really nice. But the dinner place was hard to find, not that good, and the drinks 12 Euro for a beer, and desert not included, was hard to swallow. _br/_ Take the ride, not the dinner; you can do much better $$,

Review by: John	June 2011
Great way to spend the evening making memories especially with the gondola ride and the food was pretty good as well.

Review by: Megan P	June 2011
we had a private grouped booked .Gondola person seperated most of the group 10 of us into different gondolas .Where we could have fitted into 2 instead we were all seperated with other people.We booked the serenade as there were some in the trip had brithdays and anniversarys. very disappointing. Dinner was poor one person in our group got food poisoning another 2 could not eat theres.Sorry to sound so negtive. Viator has always been good value not this time

Review by: Peter R	June 2011
This was incredibly disappointing, its not cheap and I booked it because it sounded so perfect, - Gondola ride to restaurant , meal and back. -Thats how it sounded. Reality was that we were hitched onto a gondola flotilla that was solely the ride,but fine so far. then returned to the starting point when expected to be dropped at a restaurant. unloaded from Gondola and of course all the 'ride onlys ' went on their way, we stood around waiting for someone to say 'this way for the restaurant inclusive' Finally discovered that the restaurant was a walk not a ride, and find your own way. -No-one knowing quite where it was. Eventually, food was very ordinary and not a picturesque restaurant at all._br/_ The evening could have been great if it did what it said.... but reality was dreadful.

Review by: Chan D	June 2011
Godola ride with serenade was wonderful. My one complaint / recommendation is that the restaurant should have / could have been better (not located in mainstream Venezia and not lightly patronized....food was fair)

Review by: lisa i	June 2011
The serenaded gondoloa ride was excellent but the dinner that was included was a fiasco, the gondoliers didn't know who had paid for the dinner and didn't care and after about 30 minutes they told us to go off in a vague direction that they pointed too. Literally the restaurant was quite a ways away and they didn't seem to care if we knew where it was or not, the 3 groups that had paid for the dinner were all very disappointed because as soon as the ride was finished they just kind of deserted us and didn't care that we had paid for dinner. The dinner was good but we were very lucky we had a map to try to find the restaurant. It was a disappointing end to the evening.

Review by: Melissa F	June 2011
This tour was okay, but the dinner was fabulous. I would recommend instead of doing the group gondala ride (especially if you are a party of two and want a nice romantic ride) to do private gondala ride during the day when the price is typically cheaper than in the evening. There was about 60 people on this tour, so there were 10 gondalas of 6 people each traveling together. The "serenade" was a singer and accordian player in one of the gondalas with a loudspeaker. Their singing was great but the set up was lame. Also the gondala drivers were not engaging and mostly just yelled at the 6 people in my boat for moving the wrong direction and practically tipping over the boat. The dinner spot was extremely difficult to find so definitely find it during the day time before it gets dark. The food was amazing. I highly recommend the gnocchi bolognese and this yummy chocolate ice cream ball for dessert. The people at the restaurant were very friendly and accomodating and you get a three course meal included in this voucher. Make sure to print two copies of the voucher when you go (one for the gondala ride and one for the dinner).

Review by: Lisa C	June 2011
Great value for the price. Dinner was good.

Review by: Jean B	June 2011
This was OK. More individualized program would have been nicer,

Review by: Candice M	June 2011
Fantastic!! Outstanding!! Have told everyone. Ride was great and dinner was sooooo yummy!! A great value for visitors.

Review by: Travellingschel	June 2011
As a solo traveller I chose to take this package rather than pay for a gondola myself - which is expensive. The Gondola ride was nice, but a bit of a batch job about 6 Gondolas leaving at once, and keeping close to the gondola with the serenader. It was nice to see Venice from the water/canals._br/_ The restaurant was lovely, and the food great - although one criticism was that we were left to find the restaurant ourselves after the gondolar ride, We got a bit lost which wasted some time. Would be nice to have a map or better information on how to get to the restaurant.

Review by: Walter B	May 2011
The serende consisted of one singer in a flotilla of several gondolas and he was too far away to hear and enjoy. Our gondolier spent most of our ride on his cell phone. The restaurant was a little hard to find, so print out a google map before you go. The dinner was excellent.

Review by: Sidney D	May 2011
We really enjoyed this trip. Gondola ride and entertainment were both enjoyable. Dinner afterward was really nice as well, although the restaurant was a bit difficult to find.

Review by: Kevin W	May 2011
It was OK just to experience the gondola. Good restaurant and atmosphere.

Review by: Robert L, United States of America	July 2010
This trip was fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone that wants to do a gondola ride and have dinner at a good Italian restaurant in Venice. It was the best trip price-wise that we could find and the flotilla going down the Grande Canal with musicians on one of the gondolas was awesome. Find the restaurant first as it is a little difficult to find.

Review by: Dennis S, United States of America	June 2010
This was very enjoyable and dinner wasn't bad!

Review by: Claire L, United Kingdom	June 2010
A gondola ride is a must when in Venice. Very enjoyable and relaxing, and the serenade was lovely. A map to the restaurant would be nice as we almost gave up looking for it, but we found it eventually, and it was the best meal of the whole trip!

Review by: Terri S, United Kingdom	May 2010
Fantastic!!!!!

Review by: Carol N, United States of America	May 2010
Very good

Review by: Howard M, United States of America	November 2009
This was the highlight of our trip, you will never believe how wonderfull the ride is and the Gondolier was great and the serenade was unbeliveable. The pasta dinner was unbelivable, and the restaurant, was very home and great service.

Review by: Kenneth B, United States of America	October 2009
Fun gondola ride - the dinner wans't all that great and the restaurant could have been closer to the canal. We talked to some others in line with us who have booked a similar tour and they ate a restaurant about a block away.