Tips for Ravenna departures

[bringmesunshine]

I have found it much easier to fly to Bologna prior to Ravenna departure. It's a great city and well worth a 2 or 3 night stay. There is a frequent  train shuttle from the airport into town. To get to Ravenna there is a direct train hourly every day apart from Sunday for 8 euros. Azamara provides a free shuttle bus from Ravenna station to the port. Strangely there is no mention of the free transfer on the Azamara website.

[barneyboy]

7 hours ago, bringmesunshine said:

I have found it much easier to fly to Bologna prior to Ravenna departure. It's a great city and well worth a 2 or 3 night stay. There is a frequent  train shuttle from the airport into town. To get to Ravenna there is a direct train hourly every day apart from Sunday for 8 euros. Azamara provides a free shuttle bus from Ravenna station to the port. Strangely there is no mention of the free transfer on the Azamara website.

I’m surprised they don’t mention the transfer on their website as that might encourage more bookings on sailings from Ravenna. We have certainly avoided them as I heard it was difficult to get a taxi from the station to the port. Our cruise in May ended at Ravenna and we had already bought air fare home from .Venice prior to the change of port. Azamara provided a free bus to Venice but the journey was over 2 1/2 hours long and not something I would want to repeat. 

[FlyerTalker]

Bologna (BLQ) is a MUCH more convenient airport for any departures from Ravenna.

 

One tip:  BLQ airport has a lounge that is accessible if you have Priority Pass or Lounge Club membership.  The lounge is nothing special, but it does provide you with access to the priority lane for security screening, which is a big plus.

 

Lounge is outside security on the upper level, FYI.

 

Second tip:  BLQ uses buses and outdoor stairways to your aircraft, so know you will be lifting your carryon on those stairs.

 

 

[englishlee]

Picking up on this. We got off Pursuit this morning in Ravenna.

We flew to Bologna as it's somewhere we hadn't been to for some years and is an interesting place in it's own right to spend a couple of days. Then we caught the train to Ravenna for a pre-cruise overnight, unfortunately on the day we travelled to Ravenna there were no direct trains from Bologna to Ravenna (presumably working on the line), so we had to change at Ferrara which made the journey much longer.

 

On the morning of the cruise we spent some time looking around Ravenna, and noticed a shuttle bus with an Azamara sign in the window and some passengers retrieving their suitcases so we assumed they had just disembarked. The bus stopped just around the corner from the NH Hotel and about 200m from the railway station. We had also heard that Azamara might provide a shuttle from the railway station to the port so checked that out as well, and they do an hourly service from (if my memory is correct) 1.30pm. We however decided to catch a taxi to the port instead of the bus.

 

A couple of days before disembarking we asked at the concierge desk and the guest relations desk if there was any plan to run a shuttle into Ravenna for disemarking guests, they said no and that the only option was a taxi. But lo and behold when we disemarked the lovely port staff directed us to a coach which would take us to the drop off point a couple of hundred metres from the railway station and agin just around the corner from where we were staying for a post cruise night. Chatting to the port staff we discovered that the shuttle back to the town runs hourly from 0830. It was all very efficient. We left our cabin at 0755, had breakfast, disemarked, collected our suitcases, boarded the bus and was in our hotel before 0900 - an ecxcellent outcome made better by the hotel upgarding us to a suite and allowing us to check in at 9am!

 

We're catching the train back to Bologna tomorrow and hopefully catching the Marconi Express out to the airport from there.