5.12.23 Gem sailing just cancelled 1st port - Venice. Anyone know why?

[ctmama4]

Just received an email that our cruise next week out of Trieste is no longer going to Venice day 1.  We're now overnighting and just staying in Trieste.  Does anyone know why?  No reason given in the email.

Thanks!

[kitkat343]

There have been issues with Venice limiting cruise ships because they are both trying to limit environmental pollution caused by ships, and are trying to focus on land based tourists who tend to spend more than cruise ship tourists.  

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/25/cruise-passengers-shuttled-into-venice-by-motor-boat-to-dodge-big-ships-ban#:~:text=The 25%2C000-tonne limit means,the vessels were permanently banned.

 

So there could be a governmental reason for this cancellation, but please note that NCL has done this to other cruisers for what they have stated are environmental reasons or safety reasons which included swapping out Costa Rica and Nicaragua for Acapulco and Jamaica (that might have made sense for Nicaragua, but it is hard to justify losing Costa Rica for safety reasons).  NCL has made those changes after final payment, refused to refund or let passengers switch and on my cruise, continued to advertise and sell the original itinerary for a month despite the fact that one port and another morning had been cancelled.  They wouldn't even refund passengers who purchased the cruise directly from NCL after the itinerary had been changed who had not been notified of the changes by the NCL phone reps prior to purchasing the cruise.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Ozmodiar]

On the recent Star sailing that left from Trieste and stopped in Venice, the tender time was about 90 minutes each way from shop to shore, as they took us all the way to the original cruise terminal. From there, it is a bit of an effort to get to the main sites in Venice especially for those not familiar with the area.

 

The tenders were large but people were packed in pretty tight - on the way back many of us had to stand, and in bad weather the top open deck would not have been pleasant.

 

I believe they had hoped to tender people to St Marks square area, which would have cut the tender time almost in half. They reissued the tour tickets the night before with much earlier meeting times to account for this. Also, no water taxis were meeting passengers at the cruise terminal, as I suspect they might have if they had known people would be getting dropped off at that point. It all seemed very last minute, like plans had changed.

 

I think that Venice as a tender port is untenable if they need to go all the way to the cruise terminal. Actually busing or using the train from Trieste to Venice might be a better option - a bit longer overall, but probably easier.

[cruiseny4life]

"Port availability"

 

[kjquilts]

I'm so sorry this has happened to you.  We were on the April 15 Trieste to Lisbon cruise.  We had booked an NCL shore excursion (Murano Glass & Burano Lace) because we were not sure how NCL was going to handle the tendering and I figured NCL tours would have first option. 

 

Originally our meeting point was Stardust Theater at 7:45am .... we then received new excursion tickets showing 6:30am Stardust meeting time.  As Ozmodiar mentioned we had a Shore Provided two deck boat for the 90 minute tender from the Star to the Venice cruise terminal.  We did not have inside covered seats but luckily my upstairs seat provided photo taking opportunity.  The views were amazing and I'm very glad we did the excursion.  At the terminal we followed our tour guides to smaller boats for the actual MG/BL tour and after the tour were returned to the cruise terminal.  Rather than trying to get in to Venice proper we just went in to the terminal where we waited to board one of the large boats for the 90 minute trip back to the Star.  We did hear from other cruisers not on NCL shore excursions that they had no idea what to do when they got to the Venice cruise terminal so they gave up and returned to the shipl

 

The tender schedule showed Group 1 6:30 am, Group 2 10:00 am, Group 3 1:00 pm (last tender going ashore) for ship to shore.  There were a variety of returning shore to ship times with the last tender back to the ship at 7:00pm.

 

We spent two nights in Venice staying couple blocks from Venezia Santa Lucia train station.  The morning of the cruise we walked to the station and took the shorter distance train from Venice to Trieste.  It took less than 2 1/2 hours, was very inexpensive, train car was very nice and not at all crowded.  We couldn't figure out the ticket machine but a very nice rr employee showed us how to buy our tickets and actually walked us out, validated tickets and showed us where to board.  Sometimes it is nice to be older 🙂  

 

Hopefully you will be able to see Venice ..... we dearly loved it.

Edited May 5, 2023 by kjquilts

[Ozmodiar]

As noted there is a train that runs regularly from the main station in Trieste, which is about a 10-15 minute walk to the port if the ship is docked downtown, to the main station in Venice. I used that to get from Venice to Trieste for embarkation and it was pretty straightforward. With some planning that is doable to get to Venice for the day (although I enjoyed Trieste itself).

 

I was on the same excursion as KJQuilts it seems! The excursion to me went fine, but many folks who were doing Venice on their own were unsure how to proceed after being deposited at the cruise terminal. After the tour I wandered into Venice proper and that went fine but I can see how it might have flummoxed folks who hadn't been there before.

 

I had heard that the prior cruise skipped Venice due to weather not being good for tendering - and was told that those passengers received a decent amount of OBC as the cost of the tendering was supposedly $300,000.

 

Ultimately, I think NCL tried to make the best of it for Venice to deal with the new policies, but not sure it is going to work out. 

[ctmama4]

Thanks everyone for these replies. I'd previously been in touch with the Haven Concierge on board who had said we would be tendering to St Mark's pier, but then I received other info from them that we would be docking at the cruise port. (and it still shows on CruiseMappper that we are??) I'd planned on going with the flow either way, since they gave conflicting info.  While I'm disappointed to miss Venice as a port day (we will be there 2 days on the back end, so we'll get there), I am definitely glad not to have to deal with a 90 minute tender ride each way - that sounds awful!

 

I do think it's bad business though of NCL to sell this cruise as departing from Venice (which we all know really isn't Venice) with a Venice port day, when in the end, many people won't get a chance to see Venice at all.  If they don't have a plan for how to handle the situation there, they shouldn't wait until 7 days out to tell everyone they don't get to go to Venice.  

 

It does sound like we can expect some sort of compensation for the missed port though, right?

[yakcruiser]

1 hour ago, ctmama4 said:

Thanks everyone for these replies. I'd previously been in touch with the Haven Concierge on board who had said we would be tendering to St Mark's pier, but then I received other info from them that we would be docking at the cruise port. (and it still shows on CruiseMappper that we are??) I'd planned on going with the flow either way, since they gave conflicting info.  While I'm disappointed to miss Venice as a port day (we will be there 2 days on the back end, so we'll get there), I am definitely glad not to have to deal with a 90 minute tender ride each way - that sounds awful!

 

I do think it's bad business though of NCL to sell this cruise as departing from Venice (which we all know really isn't Venice) with a Venice port day, when in the end, many people won't get a chance to see Venice at all.  If they don't have a plan for how to handle the situation there, they shouldn't wait until 7 days out to tell everyone they don't get to go to Venice.  

 

It does sound like we can expect some sort of compensation for the missed port though, right?

Since you are spending a couple days in Venice post-cruise enjoy a day in Trieste. I was also on the cruise on the Star and arrived two days early in Trieste and enjoyed my time there. Be sure and visit Castle Miramare. It is last stop on bus route #6. Happy Travels!

[kitkat343]

2 hours ago, ctmama4 said:

Thanks everyone for these replies. I'd previously been in touch with the Haven Concierge on board who had said we would be tendering to St Mark's pier, but then I received other info from them that we would be docking at the cruise port. (and it still shows on CruiseMappper that we are??) I'd planned on going with the flow either way, since they gave conflicting info.  While I'm disappointed to miss Venice as a port day (we will be there 2 days on the back end, so we'll get there), I am definitely glad not to have to deal with a 90 minute tender ride each way - that sounds awful!

 

I do think it's bad business though of NCL to sell this cruise as departing from Venice (which we all know really isn't Venice) with a Venice port day, when in the end, many people won't get a chance to see Venice at all.  If they don't have a plan for how to handle the situation there, they shouldn't wait until 7 days out to tell everyone they don't get to go to Venice.  

 

It does sound like we can expect some sort of compensation for the missed port though, right?

Hopefully you will get some sort of compensation, especially if as noted above the tender process was expected to be expensive.  On my last sailing they gave us $10 per passenger and cancelled the Domenican Republic and the morning of Antigua, but this might be closer to what happened on POA where NCL cancelled the Napali Coast line or the Alaskan cruises on the Bliss that all lost the Inside Passage.  Not sure what those passengers got in terms of compensation.  Unless NCL views the trip from Trieste to Venice to be a stop the way that the cruise ship industry views ships that dock in Warnemunde  to be a potential stop in Berlin, which requires a two and a half hour train ride.

 

In this case, I don't know how much time NCL had to be aware of the tendering process difficulties but they haven't been particularly transparent or timely in notifying passengers of problems in the past.  After running a ship aground in the DR, they had problems for nearly a year and weren't communicating that with passengers ahead of time. (I think the DR has been resolved, or at least we haven't heard about it on this forum recently)  

 

[CapeCodJo]

So, the itinerary change notice from NCL says “…we will no longer be calling to Venice, Italy…” This sounds to me like NCL will not be stopping in Venice for all cruises going forward? We are on the Gem out of Athens on May 31st with Venice as a tender port on June 8th. Now wondering if we will get a similar notice!

[kitkat343]

3 hours ago, CapeCodJo said:

So, the itinerary change notice from NCL says “…we will no longer be calling to Venice, Italy…” This sounds to me like NCL will not be stopping in Venice for all cruises going forward? We are on the Gem out of Athens on May 31st with Venice as a tender port on June 8th. Now wondering if we will get a similar notice!

Not sure.  As others noted above, it was a 90 minute tender to the cruise terminal, and from the cruise terminal most cruisers will want to make their way to St. Marks.  Trieste is roughly a 2 hour bus ride from Venice (there are also trains and possibly ferries but not a direct ferry), so since the OP's  cruise was originally starting at Trieste its possible NCL figures it would be easier to just overnight in Trieste to give people a chance to visit Venice on their own.  You are starting in Athens, so cutting the stop means that you probably won't be able to visit Venice at all, which would be a different calculation for me (another possibility might be adding Trieste as a stop if  there is space instead of docking near Venice if they won't let the tenders reach the main part of the city).  Keep an eye out on these forums and hopefully people will post their experiences soon.

Edited May 6, 2023 by kitkat343

[cruiseny4life]

On 5/5/2023 at 5:52 PM, CapeCodJo said:

So, the itinerary change notice from NCL says “…we will no longer be calling to Venice, Italy…” This sounds to me like NCL will not be stopping in Venice for all cruises going forward? We are on the Gem out of Athens on May 31st with Venice as a tender port on June 8th. Now wondering if we will get a similar notice!

That's a cruise-specific document. It has no bearing on future cruises. Don't stress too much over the document. Now, since this has become a precedent, NCL may continue to cancel the Venice port call. If it does, then another notice like this would be generated. You will receive it directly (if booked directly through NCL) or your travel agent will receive it. They should pass it on to you. Try not to worry too much, but do be cognizant that it's possible the port call will be canceled. But, maybe you'll go to Venice. NCL knows. They won't tell you until closer to May 31st though. 

[ExArkie]

On 5/5/2023 at 3:52 PM, yakcruiser said:

Since you are spending a couple days in Venice post-cruise enjoy a day in Trieste. I was also on the cruise on the Star and arrived two days early in Trieste and enjoyed my time there. Be sure and visit Castle Miramare. It is last stop on bus route #6. Happy Travels!

There is, or at least there was pre-pandemic, a ferry from Trieste to a dock just below the castle. I think it made one other stop along the way and took about 45 minutes. Approaching from the water gave great views of the castle.