How to get from Venice to the Fusina cruise ship terminal?

There is a ferry from Venice to the cruise port. It leaves from the Zattere Gesuati stop in Venice and I THINK it goes directly to the cruise terminal. But I might be wrong about that. Try several google searches and see if you think that would work for you.

There is a ferry from Venice to the cruise port. It leaves from the Zattere Gesuati stop in Venice and I THINK it goes directly to the cruise terminal.

That is the whole problem- the ferry/vaporetto goes to a totally different location about two miles away from the cruise terminal, too far to walk and no effective transport between the two. This question features quite a lot on the forum.
The easiest answer is to go to Venice Mestre railway station (on the mainland) and taxi from there, if the cruise line are not providing a shuttle bus from the old Venice cruise terminal.

Forum search
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Fusina

One solution from the link provided by ChristineH.

Posted by partymcbriar
11/17/25 03:57 PM
We are now back from the cruise (with Explora Journeys) that left Fusina cruise terminal on October 18 2025. It was a fabulous cruise!
Explora Journey offers transportation support to their guests from the Venice lagoon to the Fusina terminal, but the price was too expensive for us.
So, we took a land taxi from Piazzale Roma to the cruise terminal. There are many large multi passenger taxi vans readily available at Piazzale Roma. We did not reserve ahead. We negotiated a ride for 60 euro cash with a taxi driver who was heading to the port to pick up passengers. About a 20 minute ride, mid morning.
Interestingly, our Venetian vacation apartment host said he cruised from Fusina. His cruise line (do not know which line and it was a couple of years ago) had a shuttle water taxi running from the Tronchetto to the cruise terminal.
Hope this information helps

@joe32F, thanks very much for that useful info! I searched the Forum for information before I made my post, and focused on the more recent entries, but I didn't find those useful details from partymcbriar.

I haven't dealt with this but looking at Google Maps it looks like the #16 vaporetto runs almost hourly from Fusina to Zattere Gesuati and you would need to walk to catch another vaporetto (or walk) to San Marco. The tickets are 8e each and according to the website can be purchased at the ticket office at Fusina dock ticket office.
https://www.visit-venice-italy.com/water-bus-venice-line-16.html

The problem being that it looks like you need to exit the cruise terminal area through the gate and then loop back down to the ferry terminal and that is about 3km through some industrial and aggressively bad areas for pedestrians. If the timing works there is a supposed to be a bus to help with some of this distance but that doesn't address the core issue.

It looks like exiting the cruise area without some kind of transportation is going to be an issue with every solution. I can't believe the cruise company would leave you in this industrial area with no support, but best to plan for it, I guess. On land your target should either be Venice Mestre (landside Venice and you can train in) or Venice Piazzale Roma which is the last bus and car stop right next to Venice.

According to Google maps there is a bus stop just outside the ferry terminal gate: Terminal Ro-Port Stop ID: 632 and bus 53 will take you to Mestre but it will take an hour.
https://moovitapp.com/index/en/public_transit-line-53-Venezia-2083-851476-786823-0

Alternately it looks like you can take a bus from 16 that runs to the vaporetto stop the other way to Padana Avena and take bus Bus 53 to Piazzale Roma.

I don't think this is a practical solution but assuming you can get a taxi or shared ride either the ferry station or Padana Avena are relatively close and from there you should be able to get into the city. The easiest would obviously be to take a taxi or cruise provided ride share to either Mestre or Pze Roma but this would be expensive and may not be practical.

So if you are stuck without transport I would look to the bus terminal at the cruise terminal entrance and take the bus 53 to Venice Mestre and then train into the city. If you can get to the vaporetto stop I think the 30 minute ride into Venice itself is both the fastest and best option. I assume all of these options will be packed with people from your cruise trying to do the same thing. Hopefully if you're more informed you can at least be the first in line rather than at the back waiting for the next bus.

Good luck,
=Tod

The basic problem with the bus #53 is that it is a workers service, and the timetable is effectively useless for cruisers- https://avm.avmspa.it/sites/default/files/attachments/pdf/UM/U-53.pdf

Likewise the bus 16 from the vaporetto terminus- https://avm.avmspa.it/sites/default/files/attachments/pdf/UM/U-16.pdf

Given how remote and purely industrial the site looks - the Google maps images are from 2025 - I find it hard to believe that any cruise company would just disembark people without any support. But if that's the case then it really does seem like a series of bad choices exist.

Maybe this is a reaction to having to find a place once Venice banned cruise ships and they turned to wherever they could find, but it still seems like aggressively bad customer service on their part. Hopefully there will be some sort of shared shuttle or taxi service at least to the vaporetto or at least a stop with access to the buses to Venice from the port. Loops to Mestre are probably realistically an hour with load in/out and return traffic.

If I were an enterprising taxi driver doing 10 minutes loops to the vaporetto station @ 20e a carload would seem like a prime opportunity.

Wish I could provide help, good luck,
=Tod