Italy bans almost all cruise ships in Venice

[ECCruise]

Was approved by the Italian cabinet today and takes effect August 1.

No cruise ships 25,000+ tonnes in Venice.

 

[takemewithyou]

1 hour ago, ECCruise said:

Was approved by the Italian cabinet today and takes effect August 1.

No cruise ships 25,000+ tonnes in Venice.

 

What tonnage are the Azamara vessels.

 

[ECCruise]

18 minutes ago, takemewithyou said:

What tonnage are the Azamara vessels.

 

30000

[roaming_kiwi58]

The article I saw said:

"The ban applies to ships weighing more than 25,000 tons or longer than 180 metres or with other characteristics that would make them too polluting or overwhelming for Venice's environment."

 

The figures I have seen for the Azamara ships are 181 metres long and 30277 GT tonnage.

Unfortunately, looks like the limit is set at a point to definitely exclude ships of Azamara's size!

 

[takemewithyou]

Believe Quest is scheduled to port in Venice in October.

wonder what will happen now?

People will already have flights booked……

Edited July 13, 2021 by takemewithyou

[ECCruise]

6 minutes ago, takemewithyou said:

Believe Quest is scheduled to port in Venice in October.

wonder what will happen now?

People will already have flights booked……

They will sail out of Ravenna likely, it is less than 100 miles away.  Many lines have been doing that for a while.

[sovilav01]

33 minutes ago, ECCruise said:

They will sail out of Ravenna likely, it is less than 100 miles away.  Many lines have been doing that for a while.

Why not Porto Marghera, much closer than Ravenna?

[ECCruise]

12 minutes ago, sovilav01 said:

Why not Porto Marghera, much closer than Ravenna?

Dunno.  Guess you'd have to ask RCCL which moved to Ravenna.  

And Margehera is in the Commune of Venice, and even that may not work since Marghera's port facilities are not ready, according to the article I cited. 

 

[laurieb]

I would think that the ships will dock on the mainland. That’s what I had read some time ago

[Host Jazzbeau]

The interim solution is for cruise ships to dock at Marghera, but it is an industrial port and has no facilities for passengers or customs.  Italy has said they will develop an interim facility for passengers by August 1.  And pigs will fly...

[laurieb]

We are to sail from Venice on October 19th.  Will be following closely

[Vineyard View]

I am kind of surprised that they came in with this lower tonnage. A couple years back we were looking at a Venice departure the discussion out of Italy was 50k GT. I remember thinking that Viking, Oceania, Azamara etc would be safe to sail, but it would eliminate the mega ships. 
we are B2B next May out of Venice. 
I do wonder if this 25k will stick with the feedback it could receive from local businesses. I respect the need for preserving this beautiful UNESCO port, but this virtually eliminates most all cruises. 

[Lynnewob]

We depart Rome on 9 Oct, arriving into Venice on 19 Oct on Quest.

 

No flights booked from UK yet as it's such a fluid situation.

 

It will be interesting to see what Azamara plan to do.   I still think they'll change this "Italy intensive" cruise to a Greek one, round trip Athens, hence my reluctance to book flights.

 

Watching this news very carefully.

[curmudgeon98]

The limit seem set to clearly exclude the R-class ships as well as everything larger.  I'm OK with that; there are other more suitable ports (from a marine standpoint), though the transition will have hassles.  Cruise ships, especially the large ones, are really just wrongly scaled for Venice.  

[excitedofharpenden]

7 hours ago, ECCruise said:

They will sail out of Ravenna likely, it is less than 100 miles away.  Many lines have been doing that for a while.

Or maybe Azamara will use Trieste this time?  I notice this is the port of call before Venice on the October cruise. Maybe they had a contingency plan built in. I am not sure if it's a maiden port for Azamara, but I can't remember them using Trieste before. 

 

It's a mess for sure, but something had to be done about it. It seems the UNESCO threat was the final thing that pushed it. 

 

Phil 

[Riocca]

I understand the need to protect Venice however I don’t understand why the Venice cruise terminal can’t be used using a different route. 
If Marghera is an acceptable alternative, remembering many of the larger ships are built their anyway, ships still have to access the Venetian Lagoon. 
My understanding is that cruise ships have actually used this route in the past but dredging is required to reopen it, given the local infrastructure surely this would be better?

[Vineyard View]

When that UNESCO  warning came out I did think it would be sooner than later that a change would happen, but 25kGT is a game changer for the vast majority of the cruise industry, not just the mega ships that were talked about as the concern in the past. I was looking at GT on ships for a number of lines, and this is impacting almost all. 
 

Depending on how this plays out, the fact that the industrial port is in no way ready for the impact the cruise industry will bring, and the alternatives possible to that port, it sounds like a cluster about to begin. I am not sure how I feel about our May trip, and I am fairly certain that I am not alone in that. 

[laurieb]

11 hours ago, Lynnewob said:

We depart Rome on 9 Oct, arriving into Venice on 19 Oct on Quest.

 

No flights booked from UK yet as it's such a fluid situation.

 

It will be interesting to see what Azamara plan to do.   I still think they'll change this "Italy intensive" cruise to a Greek one, round trip Athens, hence my reluctance to book flights.

 

Watching this news very carefully.

I don't think that will happen; Greece isn't selling well.  Venice is the only issue at this point, and I'm sure that Azamara will come up with a very acceptable solution

[Riocca]

Interesting comment by Captain Johannes on Facebook, the Gross Tonnage is a measure of volume not weight. 
A quick look on Google and displacement is the measurement of a ships weight and the R ships come in at 15,100 Tonnes.

Need to see what the new regulations actually are as usual press reports are short on real details.

[Mackdogmolly]

1 hour ago, Riocca said:

Interesting comment by Captain Johannes on Facebook, the Gross Tonnage is a measure of volume not weight. 
A quick look on Google and displacement is the measurement of a ships weight and the R ships come in at 15,100 Tonnes.

Need to see what the new regulations actually are as usual press reports are short on real details.

Yes, but they still exceed the maximum length 

[Riocca]

6 minutes ago, Mackdogmolly said:

Yes, but they still exceed the maximum length 

Yes but it’s very close, length is quoted as 180.45 m (592 ft). Depends how pedantic they are and if they round up or down. 
No idea how the ships fair on the emissions requirement, but being older possibly not well.

[Mackdogmolly]

I’m glad I got to sail to Venice when I could. And the berth was so convenient.

[Riocca]

2 minutes ago, Mackdogmolly said:

I’m glad I got to sail to Venice when I could. And the berth was so convenient.

Agree we’ve been lucky and done it quite a few times but we will miss berthing at San Basilio. The alternatives are nowhere as attractive ☹️

[Mackdogmolly]

1 hour ago, Riocca said:

Agree we’ve been lucky and done it quite a few times but we will miss berthing at San Basilio. The alternatives are nowhere as attractive ☹️

I know. We were able to walk to the ship from our hotel.

[Ithikan]

6 hours ago, Riocca said:

Yes but it’s very close, length is quoted as 180.45 m (592 ft). Depends how pedantic they are and if they round up or down. 
No idea how the ships fair on the emissions requirement, but being older possibly not well.

I found an online reference to Journey's length at 593.83 ft.  A paltry difference there, but at 30,277 GT she definitely outweighs the 25,000 maximum.

Perhaps more importantly, Azamara exceeds the projected passenger loads by more than 500.  From AFAR magazine:

Italian Premier Mario Draghi’s office noted that permitted ships generally have about 200 passengers compared to the thousands that huge cruise vessels carry.