Murano Glass Factory Experience: A Workshop in Venice

Was a wonderful, unique , educational. , personalized experience! Giovanni our guide on the tourand Deb our guide at the factory were wise witty and wonderful. And the craft part was so fun! Would highly recommend

Great tour of a small glass factory. We were able to make jewelry or a keychain which was a nice touch. Showroom has plenty of overpriced glass which is very typical. Nice small group and a great tour guide.

This is an amazing experience. Do not pass this by. It was friendly and informative. The master craftsmen make it look easy.

Such a great excursion! Giovanni is a GREAT guide and took very good care of us all. The visit and tour of Murano was informative and interesting. The artists are amazing, and the work they do in front of your eyes is fantastic!

I asked and paid for a glass blowing workshop!!!! And then, AFTER I paid!, I was informed that this will be just a demo! Not a workshop

Overall a good experience however on the boat ride over to the factory wasn’t great. The boat ride was excellent however our guide never spoke to us. He hung out with the driver chatting. I would’ve liked to hear some details about where we were going. The glass blowing experience was good, the workshop activity was okay, we received instructions & no engagement from our instructor. Loved the history & details we received from our guide at the factory however the event ended with high pressure sales. Honestly that appears to be their entire goal, to make sure you purchase something before leaving. Our original guide didn’t even return with us. We were pointed to the boat & left on our own.

Very fun and interesting experience. We ended up being the only 2 people, so we had private water taxis and tours. We made a bracelet and a mosaic. We highly recommend this tour.

The boat ride and the demonstration were lovely as is murano. However I expected the craft to have some glass blowing or glasswork element to it, but it was more of an elementary school craft of either: stringing beads to make a bracelet, or gluing pieces of glass to mosaic tile. I don’t feel that was clear in the description so I wanted to point it out.

I used a private water taxi from the Rialto Hotel to The Murano Glass Factory; the tour was scheduled in advance. It was an amazing experience, the factory tour was first then a demonstration with one of the factory's Glassmakers workers making “glass art,” from “scratch.” The tour continued into the storeroom where elaborate and smaller pieces of glass work are displayed. There are huge pieces priced from $8,000.00 and upwards, there are smaller items such as small bracelets, earrings for children and adults that are reasonably priced, as well as ornaments for the home.

Our family of four left this tour feeling extremely disappointed, misled, and taken advantage of, especially considering the premium price charged for what is advertised as a Murano glass-making “experience.” In reality, we spent a total of only about 35 minutes watching someone make glass, and the supposed hands-on “workshop” was simply gluing broken pieces of tile onto a tiny 2x2-inch tile—there was absolutely no hands-on instructions. Even our two young daughters were confused and disappointed; this felt more like a simple craft activity for very young children (4-year olds rather then authentic Murano experience we believed we had purchased. Afterward, we were led into a showroom where the focus shifted to selling expensive glass pieces and discussing discounts, including better pricing if we contacted them directly, this was for 1 hour! This was a complete waste and never advertised. We didnt want to be sold on expensive glass but instead pushed to obtained free time walking around Murano on our own. When you compare the high price of this “workshop” with much less expensive glass-blowing demonstrations available elsewhere on Murano, we found the description and value extremely misleading. We called Viator immediately after leaving because our entire family genuinely felt we had fallen into a tourist trap, only to later be told that the operator considered the tour “completed” and that we needed to provide additional “documentation”—we didn’t realize we were expected to spend our vacation documenting a bad experience while it was happening in order to prove afterward that it was bad. Even more concerning, we later found other reviews describing remarkably similar experiences: a short demonstration, a basic tile/mosaic craft, being directed through a showroom fro a long period of time trying to be sold. My warning to other families and tourists is simple: understand exactly what you are paying for before booking—watching glass blowing and then gluing broken tiles onto a tiny tile is not that experience. We couldn’t even enjoy Murano itself as we felt so scammed and this tour left our family feeling that tourists are being charged a premium for an experience that does not live up to what we believed was being marketed.