Bad news. Cruise ships are back in Venice!!

Not surprised. Just like here, every decision takes years of ‘studies’ and ‘local impact’ etc, etc. Too much money involved.

Bad news indeed! Bad news for the businesses, the environment and the visitors who cherish this amazing city and its people. For the most part the passengers put nothing into the local economy: they don't use the hotels, don't frequent the restaurants, don't buy anything more than trinkets (they've already filled their suitcases with other cities' souvenirs), and just crowd the streets as they rush from site to site. After all, they already have a bed and dinner is waiting for them. Check Venice off the 'must see' list, is their goal. A little too anti cruise ships? Sorry but my opinions are formed with the help of the workers at hotels, restaurants, cafes, museums, shops and the residents I get to meet during my annual visit.

I suppose no one should be surprised, but what a shame. Such a treasure to be lost.

Not shocked!

Is anyone surprised? I was trying to find the article from another post on this topic a few weeks ago that the solution isn't so cut and dry. There is a lot of opposition against the ban from groups not affiliated with the travel industry. if I remember correctly the union representing container ship dock workers want nothing to do with cruise ships in the industrial port.

Here's another article on that first ship.

https://www.startribune.com/1st-cruise-ship-sails-through-venice-since-start-of-pandemic/600064166/
I thought this paragraph was interesting.

Cruise industry officials have told the AP that Marghera, an
industrial port within the Venice lagoon, currently does not have
suitable facilities to serve as a passenger terminal. In addition, for
it to become even a temporary solution for larger ships, the current
docks would have to be extended and a channel would have to be
dredged.

I'm betting if we check back on this day in 10 years, we'll still be talking about it.

At least Royal Caribbean and Oceania are sailing from Ravenna, not Venice this year. Royal Caribbean's are very large ships and will make a notable difference by choosing to originate in Ravenna. I would expect people still to fly into Venice and stay a few days, as most passengers do before boarding. Oceania sails smaller vessels, but will still have an impact. There may be may other lines. This story is not entirely accurate.

For the most part the passengers put nothing into the local economy: they don't use the hotels, don't frequent the restaurants, don't buy anything more than trinkets (they've already filled their suitcases with other cities' souvenirs), and just crowd the streets as they rush from site to site. After all, they already have a bed and dinner is waiting for them.

My impression has been that most of the cruises either start or finish in Venice, or both. In that case, many or most of the passengers would be spending days and nights there before or after their cruises, staying hotels and buying meals. Am I wrong about this? Do a lot of cruises just stop in Venice for a day along their routes?

A little too anti cruise ships? Sorry but my opinions are formed with the help of the workers at hotels, restaurants, cafes, museums, shops and the residents I get to meet during my annual visit.

Robert, I'm right there with you. We took a delightful evening walk in Rome with a Walks of Italy tour guide a few years ago. She has been a tour guide in Rome for 30 years and has observed the explosion of cruise ships.

She said Rome is practically unbearable in the peak season because of all the cruise ship day trippers. She said you can set your watch by when they show up and when they leave. Luckily, there's a little respite before and after they get there. It's more than sheer numbers, it's the attitudes of the cruisers. They live in fear of missing their boat so they push and shove their way in front of other tourists. She said they have an attitude of entitlement. These are tourists not only from the US but also from other parts of the world.

Some friends invited us to join them on a river cruise a few years back, which is something we'd never do on our own. While it was fun to be with them, I saw first hand how ugly cruisers can be and I understand they aren't nearly as obnoxious as big boat cruisers. My wife and I are independent travelers and like to fly close to the ground. Luckily we've seen most areas haunted by cruise ships and will purposely avoid going anywhere that is overrun by them. There's plenty to see elsewhere.

Dick, I've searched before with no success to find numbers regarding how many ships use Venice as a home port. Best I can ever find is "Venice is mostly a home port" which in my interpretation means more than half. So if we were to say half of the annual cruisers are day trippers, that means 900,000 out of 28,000,000 annual visitors are not spending money, leaving 27,100,000 spending. I know its a generalization but it still seems to me the minority of visitors are getting the majority of the blame.

Here's something else I pulled off a Google search:

An important business connected to the cruise ships industry is the
making of these big ships. The Italian public company Fincantieri is
one of the biggest shipbuilding companies in the world, specialized in
cruise ships, warships, and 60+m yachts. It has several construction
yards in Italy, as well as in the U.S., Brazil, Norway, Romania, and
Vietnam. One major construction point is in Marghera (Venice), and it
gives work to thousands of workers and 350 businesses. The number of
subcontractors increases this industry relevance even further.

Fincantieri in 2015 employed directly 7.700 people in Italy and over
22.000 people all around the world, generating revenues for 4,2 Billion €.

The Venice Cruise Ship Terminal employs 4-5.000 workers locally, which
is over 4% of the workers of Venice, and a total of 7-8.000 workers in
all of Italy. The economic impact of the port represents 3-4% of the
Venice municipality GDP.

It is clear that a part of Italy’s economic interests and job
opportunities are tightly bound to the cruise ships business.

Corporations with deep pockets are involved meaning decisions are going to be made on a national level by politicians need contributions. Locally, the issue goes way beyond the money spent or not spent by tourists. How are 4000-5000 workers directly linked to the cruise port going to be affected? Not to mention the supply chain of other companies feeding the ship with food, fuel, etc. How is the government going to replace the tax revenue generated by the industries and employment benefitting from the cruise industry? Employment and business factors go way beyond the retailers within the lagoon. The bottom line, nobody seems to want it in their neigbourhood, but everyone still wants the revenue. Hmmm.

My friends who frequently go to Positano say this situation is occurring there as well. The daytrippers pile off the buses, go where they are led, take tons of pictures of things instead of buying them, and leave. Local businesses barely benefit from the invasion.

But that's how tourism often works. They kill what they love.

I posted this back on tax day

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/venice-cruise-ships-back/index.html

I have not yet seen any info about Oceania and RCL going out of Revenna. We have an Oceania Cruise booked for this coming Oct roundtrip Venice. Not yet cancelled. Still hopeful. Also not seeing any changes on their website as previous poster said that Ravenna is the new port being used by them. Where have you seen that change? It’s fine with us as I do have concern over Venice, Felt a tad better when we booked with Oceania that their ships are smaller.

Ooops. I do see RCL in the CNN article using Ravenna as port...nothing yet about Oceania?

I'm not sure I got why you are all so worried (and life expectancy is too short to read FoxNews), but:

10 days ago the € 936,000 contract to design the new cruise terminal at Marghera was awarded to a Genoa-based company.

For now Venice Port Authority is meeting the deadlines laid down by Mr. Draghi. Working is easier when a guy in Rome (who is not interested in being voted) cut the Gordian knot.

This thread seems the "2021 Great Fair of Conspiracy Theories" ! Did you actually think they could use an industrial port to disembark cruise passengers without building a new terminal? Did anyone in the US press actually read the Bill by Draghi about Marghera and Cruise Companies in Venice? Spoiler alert: the Bill left no leverage to anyone to file a lawsuit and block the procedure. They have all been equally damaged.

Safety rules written by EU bureaucrats + Cruise companies lawyers... = you MUST build a new passengers terminal by the book.

A travel agent told me about RCL and Oceania. But you’re right. There’s plenty out there about RCL but as for Oceania, nothing in the trade press or their website. Either he got it wrong or Oceania has changed their mind. Probably the former if they haven’t come out publicly with such good news. Hope springs eternal.

The plan of disembarking cruise ship passengers at an industrial port instead of a cruise ship port actually happened to us in Barcelona. It was a fiasco. Navigating heavy equipment and longshoremen who were as unhappy about it as we were, lack of appropriate support, and no public transportation or taxis were the tip of the iceberg. The reason? A last minute decision that there was no room at the cruise ship terminal inn. If you think Venice is a mess, try sailing from or to Barcelona. Maybe not the same environmental impact, but the sheer number of cruise ships calling there definitely affect the quality of life for both residents and land vacationers. Restaurants, hotels, the airport (with its own special horror stories, trust me), and tourist sites all suffer. Those cities also make millions from industry passengers as well. It goes both ways. I never liked Barcelona in general or Las Ramblas in particular, but watching huge waves of cruisers descend there is equally unappealing as it is in Venice, Kotor, Bari, or Dubrovnik. In my experience, it’s been the tiny Caribbean ports, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale who have it down to a science, probably because their economies are so dependent on the industry. Maybe European ports will catch up, but the cruise industry revenue there isn’t a life and death issue like it is in the Caribbean, so don’t hold your breath. It’s true that the industry has plenty of problems that need attention. I get that. What annoys me is that plenty of cruise-haters criticize the problems, industry and passengers, but no one offers solutions. (And, BTW, there are heaps of land-loving “look at me, I only travel with carry-on luggage—aren’t I special?” tourists who are quite obnoxious as well. Let’s talk about that.)