Royal Caribbean have moved port in Venice!

[foxylady99]

Didn’t realise that there was such a long journey to the port now from Marco Polo.  I wanted to have a day exploring Venice and now have found out there is a two hour journey to the port.  Very upset that Royal Caribbean did not inform me of this before I made the booking.  And it’s expensive!  Has anyone got any ideas about this?  

 

 

[JT1962]

21 hours ago, foxylady99 said:

Didn’t realise that there was such a long journey to the port now from Marco Polo.  I wanted to have a day exploring Venice and now have found out there is a two hour journey to the port.  Very upset that Royal Caribbean did not inform me of this before I made the booking.  And it’s expensive!  Has anyone got any ideas about this?  

 

 

Venice banned large cruise ships last year. All of the major cruise lines have had to move their port stops for Venice to other locations. 
 

https://www.cnn.com/travel/amp/venice-cruise-ship-ban-government/index.html

[mapleleaves]

Recent RCI cruise reviews report that there  is a cruiseline shuttle from Marco Polo Airport to the Ravenna cruise terminal. $50 doesn't seem unreasonable for a 2 hr journey. ( Actually, the taxi from Venice Airport into Venice is about that price and it's only a 20 minute drive! )

 

 

[steamboats]

@foxylady99 you´ve obviously missed something... This change has been done prior to the pandemic already due to the announcement of the closure of Venice port. They moved all 2020 cruises from Venice to Ravenna. But then those cruises were all cancelled due to the pandemic. There was no cruise out of Venice by RCI or Celebrity since the restart of cruising. All current cruises have never been sold with Venice as embarkation port but were always Ravenna or Venice (Ravenna).

 

Ravenna is a 2.5 hour bus ride from Venice. There´s more or less no choice. Anything else might be even more expensive.

 

steamboats

Edited July 3, 2022 by steamboats

[Tin can]

There is a train to Ravenna which is what we are doing, 2.5 hours from Venice with a change in Bologna or Ferrara. 

 

Prices are reasonable and seems more fun than a 2.5 hour bus ride but we do have 3 days before we cruise for a stay in Venice and a night in Ravenna to make this work and be a part of the holiday.

 

I wouldn't be doing this on the morning of the cruise but I'm actually looking forward to the train and seeing a bit of Italy.

 

 

[steamboats]

7 hours ago, Tin can said:

There is a train to Ravenna which is what we are doing, 2.5 hours from Venice with a change in Bologna or Ferrara. 

 

Then you still need a taxi to get to the port as the train station is downtown and the port is out of town in Ravenna. There is also a public bus which you can use.

 

steamboats

[Hlitner]

If you are just planning on visiting Venice for the day (on your way to Ravenna) you may need to fork over their new Visitor Entrance Fee (starting Jan 23) of up to 10 Euros per person :).  Venice is truly on a "tourist roll."  First, they ban nearly all cruise ships from their nice cruise port.  And now, to add some more fun they are going to be the 2nd Italian city to charge an entry fee (for day visitors).  I also noticed that the fine for not paying that entrance fee can range up to 300 Euros.  Only in Italy 🙂

 

Hank

[Tin can]

On 7/3/2022 at 5:00 PM, steamboats said:

 

Then you still need a taxi to get to the port as the train station is downtown and the port is out of town in Ravenna. There is also a public bus which you can use.

 

steamboats

 

There has previously been a free cruise shuttle that departs from near Ravenna station provided by the Port that was stopped during Covid. It has been discussed in the Royal Caribbean board that Royal have very recently been providing its own station-port shuttle for $10 each way if I recall correctly.

[Tin can]

On 7/3/2022 at 6:20 PM, Hlitner said:

If you are just planning on visiting Venice for the day (on your way to Ravenna) you may need to fork over their new Visitor Entrance Fee (starting Jan 23) of up to 10 Euros per person :).  Venice is truly on a "tourist roll."  First, they ban nearly all cruise ships from their nice cruise port.  And now, to add some more fun they are going to be the 2nd Italian city to charge an entry fee (for day visitors).  I also noticed that the fine for not paying that entrance fee can range up to 300 Euros.  Only in Italy 🙂

 

Hank

 

Indeed, there was a programme on TV here (UK) recently though about Venice and how it is really struggling with the number of day visitors. I can't recall exactly but think it stated that sometimes it can be  as many as 150,000 per day which is considerably more than live or stay there overnight in hotels. 

 

The head of tourism chap who was interviewed basically saying it is good people want to come and visit and spend money but that they simply couldn't cope. 

[fvandewouwer]

40 minutes ago, Tin can said:

 

There has previously been a free cruise shuttle that departs from near Ravenna station provided by the Port that was stopped during Covid. It has been discussed in the Royal Caribbean board that Royal have very recently been providing its own station-port shuttle for $10 each way if I recall correctly.

we will be at Ravenna station in september can anyone confirm there will be a shuttle from Royal that brings us to the port and do I have to book it up front ?

there is no information on the website ( or I must have missed it  )

thank you

[Hlitner]

13 minutes ago, Tin can said:

 

Indeed, there was a programme on TV here (UK) recently though about Venice and how it is really struggling with the number of day visitors. I can't recall exactly but think it stated that sometimes it can be  as many as 150,000 per day which is considerably more than live or stay there overnight in hotels. 

 

The head of tourism chap who was interviewed basically saying it is good people want to come and visit and spend money but that they simply couldn't cope. 

"Overtourism" seems to be a worldwide problem in key European locations.  Just consider western Europe where we have a real overtourism crisis in Venice, Santorini, Dubrovnik, Cinque Terre, and some other places.  But the Italians seem to make the situation worse by encouraging tourism and then rying to undo the damage.  The cruise port in Venice had undergone major improvements over the last thirty years including the addition of the efficient People Mover.  Now they have all but closed this large port facility which is causing a bad situation in nearly every other port facility within 2 hours of Venice.  And all those folks who are now being forced to use ports in Trieste and Ravenna now need to be transported to Venice which is going to create a bigger traffic problem as thousands are moved (daily) via buses.  Consider that a 4000 passenger ship would need about 80 buses just to transport their charges to Venice.  Those 80 buses need to use the Causeway into Venice, crowd Tronchetto, and then most of those folks will likely be moved into Venice on the People Mover which does have its limitations when it comes to moving thousands in a short period of time.  

 

As very independent travelers we are always looking for places that are not overly crowded.  Recently we flew to Prague (from Nice) and managed to beat the annual summer hoards by a few weeks.  We than used a rental car to drive to some more obscure places in the Czech Republic (not yet overrun with tourists) and then head over to Krakow (a really underrated tourist city).   In years past we would have probably spent our time in Italy and drove over to Riomaggiore (Cinque Terre) which is a place we now avoid because of overtourism primarily caused by Italy opening up the Port of La Spezia to large cruise ships.  Cinque Terre is just not able to handle 5000+ cruisers during their normal busy tourist season and it has created a real mess.   Eventually, Italy will overreact to this situation (the Italian way) and likely close the Port of La Spezia to mega ships and possibly close the road to Riomaggiore on busy days (they have already installed gates to close that road).

 

Why is this happening?  When we started cruising in Europe back in the 70s, most cruise ships carried fewer than 1500 passengers.  As ships became larger the ports were still able to handle the 2000-2500 passenger vessels.  But then the industry started building megaships that can carry 4000-6000 souls.  Most ports cannot efficiently handle those numbers.  As we have posted earlier, the Santorini Cable Car (which is the primary means of getting all cruise passengers down to the tender port) can only handle 600 persons per hour (one direction).  A single 4000 passenger ship would need over 6 hours to move all their passengers down to that tender pier and on some days there can be 3 or 4 ships in the cauldron.   The math does not work.  And it is the same in Dubrovnik where that walled town cannot handle 10,000+ cruise passengers in a single day!

 

The cruise industry is now a victim of their own success and monster ships.  Just consider that a single line (MSC) has been adding about 2 large ships per year to their fleet.  And nearly all those vessels are in European ports during the busy tourist season.  RCI has moved some of their monster ships to Europe, Disney now has some really large ships with their next build carrying over 5500!  Hard to know where and how this all ends.

 

Hank

[steamboats]

3 hours ago, Tin can said:

 

Indeed, there was a programme on TV here (UK) recently though about Venice and how it is really struggling with the number of day visitors.

 

But actually only 6% of the visitors were coming by cruise ship. The cruise ships were never the problem regarding overtourism in Venice.

 

steamboats

[steamboats]

3 hours ago, Tin can said:

 

There has previously been a free cruise shuttle that departs from near Ravenna station provided by the Port that was stopped during Covid. It has been discussed in the Royal Caribbean board that Royal have very recently been providing its own station-port shuttle for $10 each way if I recall correctly.

 

Wow, really just 10 $??? Back in 2011 there was no free port shuttle and the RCI shuttle was 14 $!!

 

steamboats

[WomanRN]

We are taking the train from Venice to Ravenna with a change of trains in Ferrara. Anyone have experience with what seems like a "tight" train connection.  We have 7 minutes to get off of one train and board another.  Is the Ferrara station station large?  Will we have difficulty finding the right track??

We specifically asked not to be routed through Bologna because of other travelers coming from there and because of the recent train strike.  We also have signed up for the $10 shuttle from the train station to the pier.  Why did Royal/Italy have to make this so difficult??

[GatheringDust]

4 hours ago, WomanRN said:

We are taking the train from Venice to Ravenna with a change of trains in Ferrara. Anyone have experience with what seems like a "tight" train connection.  We have 7 minutes to get off of one train and board another.  Is the Ferrara station station large?  Will we have difficulty finding the right track??

 

We just did this last week! We had 20 minutes to make the connection in Ferrara, but seven minutes would have been ok if all the trains are right on schedule (which all of ours were). It is not too big of a station. There were plenty of screens to give us the bin number for our next train and plenty of signs directing us to the right number.

[euro cruiser]

There are only six tracks at Ferrara so you won't have far to go.

 

Ferrara (rfi.it)

[WomanRN]

22 minutes ago, euro cruiser said:

There are only six tracks at Ferrara so you won't have far to go.

 

Ferrara (rfi.it)

Yay!!  One less stressor! Thanks so much for your prompt reply!

[WomanRN]

25 minutes ago, GatheringDust said:

 

We just did this last week! We had 20 minutes to make the connection in Ferrara, but seven minutes would have been ok if all the trains are right on schedule (which all of ours were). It is not too big of a station. There were plenty of screens to give us the bin number for our next train and plenty of signs directing us to the right number.

Thanks for all the detail!  One less stressor!

[euro cruiser]

If you'll give me the train times I'll look on the quadri and see what tracks they are supposed to use at Ferrara.  That doesn't guarantee they will use them, but the plan is published and as far as I know they stick to it unless there is a reason they have to deviate.

[cabohdan]

11 hours ago, fvandewouwer said:

we will be at Ravenna station in september can anyone confirm there will be a shuttle from Royal that brings us to the port and do I have to book it up front ?

there is no information on the website ( or I must have missed it  )

thank you

I called RCI and set it up.  It is $45 pp from Marco Polo to the Port.

[Host Jacquelyn]

Just did this in May. We were on one of the first sailings in Ravenna, and the RCCL shuttle from the Ravenna train station wasn't running yet. I spoke to a local and he said there are only 5 taxis total in Ravenna, although perhaps there are more now that there is a higher demand .I heard it was pretty hectic getting from the train to port, but I believe it has improved in recent weeks.

 

We took the shuttle from the Airport both directions. Even though we stayed in Venice pre and post cruise, we took a cab to the airport to meet the shuttle. The bus was very comfortable and dropped us off right at the terminal. Very convenient.

[Tin can]

19 hours ago, steamboats said:

 

Wow, really just 10 $??? Back in 2011 there was no free port shuttle and the RCI shuttle was 14 $!!

 

steamboats

 

I agree, for Royal this seems very cheap but as also confirmed above I have seen $10 dollars stated a few times now. Maybe it is subsidised as I understand it used to be provided free by the port.

[Tin can]

14 hours ago, GatheringDust said:

 

We just did this last week! We had 20 minutes to make the connection in Ferrara, but seven minutes would have been ok if all the trains are right on schedule (which all of ours were). It is not too big of a station. There were plenty of screens to give us the bin number for our next train and plenty of signs directing us to the right number.

 

Thats good to know that the service is punctual and changing in Ferrara was simple. Did you stop a night in Ravenna or go straight to the port?

[fvandewouwer]

any transportation/shuttle from the Ravenna train station to the port and visa versa ?

[euro cruiser]

See posts #14 and #20 for info on the RCI shuttle between the train station and the port at Ravenna.