How to maximize Venice time when 6 cruise ships are in town?

Here are some suggestions and strategies we received from a post I made a couple of months ago. We are visiting Venice in July over 5 days. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/venice-planning-and-cruise-ship-dates

You can use the SEARCH field at the top of the page (iPad) to search for other recent threads too.

Head to Torcello, which is too far for the day trippers to get to. Start early to avoid the crowds.

I would be hitting the streets very early and very late. It might take'em noon to get off the ships and takeover the center city. That'd be a good time to walk out to the outer sections of the island--where few tourists go.
And Venice is a magical place after dark.
6 ships is a little overkill. I cannot remembering any place we visited that had so many tourists dropped in one place--excessive.
You could take a short train ride over to Verona for a day trip. Or a bus ride up to Trieste for the day.

Good advice upthread. I would also reiterate some strategies: Walk "off the beaten path" to neighborhoods. Make it an early start. We found taking the Vaporetto to Torcello, Lido and Burano was a relaxing way to enjoy different scenery. This was all doable at the end of August 2018. Enjoy your stay!!

We were in Venice for the day on Saturday 4/20/19, and there were two cruise ships in port. During the day, the lines were too long to visit any sites such as St. Mark's Basilica or the Doge's Palace. Things got better in the evening. A day trip to Padova is another option.

Venice needs to limit these huge ships.

We were in Venice for 5 days last June. You can easily spend the late morning til mid afternoon on Burano. There are significantly fewer tourists on the outer islands, as all the cruise ship folks want to see the main sights near Saint Marks Square. Burano is beautiful and you can enjoy the vaporetto ride there, stroll leisurely around the island taking in all the colors, do so shopping or window shopping, and enjoy a good seafood lunch. Then take the vaporetto and return to the main island by about 4, and the tourists should be heading back to their ships.

Other things you can do during the height of the cruise ship infestations are: explore the Jewish Quarter (which was extremely quiet/uncrowded when we visited); head to one of the art galleries (unlikely to draw cruisers with limited time for their visit); or take a leisurely vaporetto ride around the entire island.

If possible, get up early and wander around. I enjoyed stopping for a coffee at the corner bakery (where I was the only one not speaking Italian) and watching the merchants set up shop at the fish market..

If anyone plans to fly out of Venice on a day with a bunch of cruise ships in port, the airport will simply be out of control crowdwise starting at around 9:30 a.m. Many of those ships are starting and ending their cruises in Venice--and not just simply visiting.
We flew to London from Venice on one of those cruise ship days and I've never seen so many huge suitcases in one place.

I arrived in Venice last Sunday when there were ~10,000 cruise ship passengers in port. Yes the area around St. Marks was a zoo but it always is. Don’t freak out about cruise ship people. They generally are going to go just St. Mark’s square, Doge’s palace, St. Mark’s Basilica. I have done the math and even on my day of arrival cruise ship people were probably only 20% of visitors to Venice. Venice gets 20-30 million visitors a year so conservatively 50,000 per day, even setting aside seasonality. 10,000 is a big day for cruise passengers in port. Cruise visitors are also fewer outside of the weekend as many cruises begin or end in Venice.

You would be fine on the busiest days going to Murano/Burano. I will say the vaporetto on the grand canal is busy until very late, day trippers headed back to the train station for Padua or Mestre. If you walk to the train station though you can take a nighttime vaporetto back that is fairly empty. Also the #2 that goes on the back side from the station is good at night. I found the Doge’s Palace pretty uncrowded just last Tuesday, even as the square was packed. My theory is the day trippers don’t want to spend the extra 20 Euros but maybe I just got lucky. Rick says if there is a big line at the
Doge’s Palace, walk over to the Correr to buy the combo ticket. Accamedia museum with Leonardo exhibit was very uncrowded. Correr Museum on Wednesday, totally empty. The cruise ship people are making a beeline for the big sights, as long as you don’t do the same on the same day, you are fine. Venice is a zoo but I found this past week, totally manageable.

Go visit the beautiful isles of Murano & Burano. Not far from Venice and a fantastic day trip.

I was there last May and one day apparently 5 ships were in town. The biggest thing is the San Marco - to - Rialto corridor is absolutely insane between 10-5. Avoid at all costs. Go out early (the light is great at 7-8!) to these areas if you want uncrowded pictures/ outdoor experiences. Sights like museums are closed that early but the canal views etc are great.

I was surprised that the back streets were still quiet even at noon on a 5 ship day. If you can’t go to Torcello etc, it’s a good day for wandering away from the sights. Heck, even second tier things like San Polo square, weren’t unbearable. It was San Marco - Rialto that was nuts. So avoid that area. Makes sense, if you are there on a one day cruise stop you just see the most famous area. Also, by 5 the crowds noticeably diminished. Have dinner or do evening activities wherever you like.

You have been given good advice above. Basically, avoid Piazza San Marco, Rialto Bridge, Academia Bridge, and the streets and campi that connect them during the daytime.

If you do go to Murano and Burano, consider staying for dinner there, and time you return boat ride to coincide with the sunset. It is magical.

And late one afternoon, head to Via Garibaldi (east of San Marco area) by northern streets through Castillo. Find a sidewalk cafe to sit and have an aperitivo around 6 pm to watch the cruise ships depart. This wide straight Calle, unusual for Venice, lines up perfectly with the bend in the Giudecca Canal that the ships use to depart. It looks like they are coming straight at you.

Which cruise ships are they, and how many passengers on each? That matters.
We have cruised on ships with 200-500 passengers on board, and out of Venice, the SeaCloud, I think I remember, had only 60something of us. So, you can have 6 of those type ships and be way UNDER the passengers on one huge, mega ship.

But, the advice given above by others is sound.

I checked for our upcoming trip. It includes the first weekend of June, which is the Sensa festival in Venice. On Saturday and Sunday, there are approximately 12,000 cruise passengers in town each day. Friday has 5,000, Monday 1,800 and Tuesday 0!

If you don’t want to head out of Venice, just spend those days exploring Dorsodoro, Cannaregio or San Polo. There are a lot of things to see in these less crowded sestiere of the city. And, if you must go to San Marco on those days, do it in the evening.

How please does one find out when the cruise ships are a-coming? I will be visiting Venice in early September. Many thanks, Brian.

Crew-center.com