Where does O port in Marseille?

We are on the Sirena and in Marseille Aug 22. We dock at 10 am. We are wondering what port we dock at. I rented a car from Hertz and it said" from the cruise ship terminal" but I am concerned there might be 2.

I don't mind a taxi to the office but would prefer to at least make sure it is within 5/10 mins. away. Thanks so much

I've seen differing reports. One person said the smaller ships park downtown, but I've only been recently on the Riviera there a couple of times, and we were way out in a container commercial port with nothing around.

I was there in 09 on the Insignia but I don't remember where we ported.

We are on the Sirena and in Marseille Aug 22. We dock at 10 am. We are wondering what port we dock at. I rented a car from Hertz and it said" from the cruise ship terminal" but I am concerned there might be 2.

I don't mind a taxi to the office but would prefer to at least make sure it is within 5/10 mins. away. Thanks so much

On our three R ship cruises to Marseille we were always near the middle of the city.

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On our first O cruise to Marseille on Riviera, we docked right at the foot of town. Fabulous. On our second trip to Marseille on Riviera (about 2 years ago) we docked at a more industrial port which was a 45 minute bus ride from Marseille. It totally ruined my plans to take the train to Avignon and I ended up taking a ship tour out of self-defense since we were docked in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do. I don't recall a cruise terminal with car rental facilities, but perhaps it's been developed more since then. On the ship, I was told that larger ships like Riviera could no longer dock in town....

We were in that horrible container port on Riviera as well as on Crystal.

Us too last week and Oceania only provided one bus per hour! They had a separate bus for the staff which only had roughly six people in it and they wouldn't let us on.

Found this aspect of Oceania poor.

We were docked near the fort/museum on Sirena in 2016 and it was superb. The seafront in that area has undergone a massive redevelopment that makes for a great walk/shop/eat tour. Previously on Marina and Riviera we were docked at the commercial port and a shuttle bus was the only way to get in and out of Marseille - not all that bad as some suggest, but better than nothing.:D

I was so angry about our port location on our second Oceania cruise to Marseille that I was reluctant to cruise again on O-class ships - and avoided any cruise porting in Marseille. Arriving at the 'industrial port' discussed in this thread can totally ruin any plans that don't involve Oceania shore excursions. Like a previous poster, there were extremely long lines waiting for very infrequent busses into Marseille, and very few taxis.

But I know most ports have a schedule of cruise ship arrivals/departures, so I poked around a bit and found this site:

http://www.marseille-port.fr/en/Page/Harbours%20and%20terminals/12856

If you check the date you are scheduled to port in Marseille, you will find your ship and port location. "Fos" is the port located in the town of Marseille. "Marseille" (or Marseille Provence) is the industrial port.

Bon Chance!;)

Just tried out the link, which will clearly illustrate the difference in the ports. A couple tips - use the Harbormaster menu and choose Consulting Stopovers to see the ship lists. Since it's a busy port, suggest selecting the 'cruise ship' tabs.

Thanks for the responses.... So we are going to dock at the ugly container port... Mole Leon Gourett MPCT.... Now I need to find a car rental place that is close... we are heading to Avignon for the day !!!

Riviera's call at Marseille on Oct. 27 is also at the industrial port. I thought O was supposed to dock at close in locations due to the smaller size ships. This will be a real inconvenience for those of us not taking a ship tour.

I see there are 4 other ships in Marseille that day including three mega ships with 3000+ pax each. is it likely the cabbies will know this and make themselves available? At least Riviera is the first in at 7:00am. Maybe it will be easier to get a cab or use the ship shuttle early in the morning. Any recent experience with the shuttle?

We did ship excursion in Marseille in May on the Marina so I'm not sure where we docked. (We had O-Life so it was "free". We went to Arles and St. Remy - was a terrific tour.) I did notice a big change in the shuttles at other ports where we did not have excursions compared with our Baltic cruise several years earlier. Don't know if it was due to cutbacks by Oceania or because of the ports themselves.

Srdancer, on our cruise this month the shuttles were very infrequent, compared to the same ports with another cruise line so I'm sure it's Oceania's choice and how many buses they choose to pay for.

Srdancer, on our cruise this month the shuttles were very infrequent, compared to the same ports with another cruise line so I'm sure it's Oceania's choice and how many buses they choose to pay for.

Csardas: did you see taxis at the dock when the ship arrived? I hate to waste hours waiting for a free shuttle and will happy to take a cab from the dock into the center of the city. We are docked from 7:00am to 7:00pm along with 4 other ships so I would hope the taxis will be there.

Did you comment to O about the lack of shuttles? What was their excuse?

Susiesan: Sorry, I didn't notice taxis but not to say there weren't any there, or just outside the gate bit.

A pair of Australian women were very vocal. They'd cruised on Oceania before so were invited to a special returnees cocktail party that evening. I didn't envy the Captain as they were planning to give him what for about the bus issue-I decided to leave it to them!

We were just on Riviera in early June in Marseille and we were in the port close to the heart of the downtown port. About 10 minute bus ride from the Old Fort/embattlements and most of that was just navigating the port itself and passing checkpoints etc.

I've heard it largely depends on when you arrive (if the close port is already full) as well as budget and other ports of call on the trip.

We were told the shuttle in Marseille was operated by the port, it was infrequent and stopped for lunch. In the ,morning there were a number of taxis, they became fewer during the day, but there was an occasional one returning passengers to the port.

We were told the shuttle in Marseille was operated by the port, it was infrequent and stopped for lunch. In the ,morning there were a number of taxis, they became fewer during the day, but there was an occasional one returning passengers to the port.

We had the same problem on our Riveria cruise in Valencia in June.We have been to Valencia twice before with Oceania and never had a problem. This time there were huge lines waiting for the shuttle bus which ran every 45 minutes and stopped for hour and half at lunch. There were a lot of irritated people who eventually got off the line and got taxis. When the Oceania rep was questioned about what was going on the answer was "Oceania only hired two buses". Now I know why they printed a ton of disclaimers about the shuttle bus in the Currents. I never saw that before this cruise. This was obviously another cutback since the NCL merger.

Thanks , That is vert very frustrating

Well, ports decide where to assign the ships, not the cruise line or ship itself. Sometimes you get a good assignment and sometimes not. I try to find the official port site for each city we'll be visiting so I can look up docking location. Port web sites also give you an idea of how many other ships will be in town with you.

Shuttles are also frequently provided by the port, but you DO have to check to make sure they run all day, and find out what the frequency is, plus the time of the last shuttle. As for a break during lunch, we experienced this with a port-provided shuttle in Helsinki. There were no shuttles for 2 hours mid-day. Of course, there were taxis available, and public transportation went part of the way back to the port, making it possible but not ideal to go back to the ship in the middle of the day.