This is not surprising.....

that looks like a good solution to me, though 4 years before implementation is a long time to wait. And allows too much time for the cruise lines to lobby/influence Italian politicians to change their minds. I really hope this is adopted, as I'm firmly in the anti-cruise ships looming over St. Mark's camp. Not anti-tourist, as I am one, but those ships are too big and destructive for that space.

Viking Cruises runs a commercial during PBS's Masterpiece Theater. There's a long shot of their cruise ship lurking behind St. Mark's like some modern day Godzilla. I cringe every time I see it.

We took a Walks of Italy Evening Stroll tour in Rome. Our tour guide talked about how Rome has changed now that Civitavecchia serves as a nearby cruise ship port. She pointed out that it floods Rome with 10,000+ day trippers and that in summer the overcrowding becomes intolerable.

Cruise ships are the antithesis of travel to me. Call me a snob, it's a moniker I'll gladly accept. The sheer numbers of people is bad enough, but the types of people regurgitated by the cruise ships are too often loud, impatient and generally obnoxious. They are like a floating WalMart.

" They are like a floating WalMart."

Good one! LOL!

We just returned from Italy October 1st. Spent 2 nights in Venice on Giudecca (we picked up a bike and barge trip there) - our evening in Venice was magical but the next day you couldn't even walk with all the people - seriously crushing. Seeing the cruise ships looming over the city was sad. I hope they actually get this done. I do cruise and I understand why people choose to cruise but there are certain itineraries that why won't cruise because they are so popular it's maddening. Having said that we haven't cruised in a few years as we have become more and more comfortable just DIY.

I've seen that commercial Doug Mac ! Erggggg.......

An article in Italian newspapers today gives a slightly different story. Large and medum size ships will enter the Venice lagoon using a more-southernly entrance. The largest ships will dock at a new port in Marghera (adjacent to Mestre), while meduim size ships will be allowed to dock in Venice but must approach from the direction of Mestre. Only the smallest vessels (those under 55 thousand tonnes) will be allowed to enter Venice using the current routes. This probably means a lot of cruise ship passengers will begin and/or end their cruise in Marghera rather than Venice as early as 2020 (or maybe 2019 according to the article), sooner than per BBC article.

These extra large cruise ships are problematic in many places, but probably more so in a small place like Venice. Here in Sydney, we have two cruise ship terminals and the newer one is upstream of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The problem with that is that the bigger ships cannot fit under the bridge. This has also led to plans to develop a new terminal downstream of the bridge. On the other hand here in Sydney we are better able to cope with the cruise ship passengers. In a city of millions, a few thousand extra is not really noticeable.

Traveling would actually be nicer if we didn't have to deal with cruise ships...and their cargo. I cringe when I see that commercial with the gigantic cruise ship in Venice, but I cringe even more when I see a flag on the tip of the tour guide's wand as they lead 150 people toward me in the tiny alleys of Venice and Rome - practically pinning us against the wall.

While I agree the mass travel industry stinks and needs to be held responsible for the impact on destinations, the passengers are everyday people. When I've seen cruise groups there a family groups that include young and elderly who couldn't otherwise travel together; there are people with mobility issues; there are folks who couldn't otherwise afford the travel; and of course there are some classless dolts. Some travelers are lucky that have the skills and money to travel independently, others aren't.

I’ve a photo from our first or second visit to Venice. St Marks Sq with a giant cruise ship looming over everything. It’s horrific.

Especially enjoyed the eye-roll of the lead violinist of the string quartet playing at Chiesa della Pieta when the giant cruise ship sounded its horn right outside the front door.

Some of the comments about cruise passengers may be thought snarky, but I find them just very unkind. Very unkind.

...and, if you keep abreast of the RS Facebook page, Rick's actually doing a show on cruising that he shot this fall on a Mediterranean cruise that a friend of mine happened to be on at the time. Something like 8 ports in 10 days, which sounds completely insane but--no pun intended--whatever floats your boat. But it's the antithesis of assimilating. I'll never do it again--once to Cozumel and the Caymans was enough for me.

The abundance of cruise ships and their offloading at ports is one of the main reasons I travel to Italy off-season. Heck, it's been bad enough in March around the Duomo in Florence, mostly on the weekends, though.

When I've seen cruise groups there a family groups that include young and elderly who couldn't otherwise travel together; there are people with mobility issues; there are folks who couldn't otherwise afford the travel...

Unless you stay on the ship the entire time I'm not sure I see where taking a cruise would be helpful for those with mobility issues. If you have to stay on the ship the entire time, I'm not sure what value taking a cruise would have, unless you like to eat and drink.

I guess Caribbean cruises can be inexpensive, but our Viking River Cruise turned out to be quite pricey. We just spent a little more than a week in London and Paris. Our VRC Rhine River Cruise cost us between 3 and 4 times as much for the same trip length.

Some of the comments about cruise passengers may be thought snarky, but I find them just very unkind. Very unkind.

Have you been on a cruise? Given my experience with cruise passengers, I think my remarks reflect a model of constraint.

(Doug, I think you meant 'restraint'?)

Doug, I just think we're of a completely different ilk than 'cruise people'. Not that it makes us better, but inside maybe a lot of us 'do-it-yourself'-ers on this forum feel that way, if only to ourselves.

Look, if I only had ten days, and I really didn't want to do a lot of schlepping my bags, and I wanted to see a lot a lot of things, then...maybe. RS really tried in his show---clips on Facebook now---to grasp the allure of that aspect of travel.

But my gosh, whyinblazes would you want to do that, when---thanks again to RS---I can feel empowered and confident enough in European travel to rent an apartment on my own in Rome, and pay one night upfront?! My friends said, you could lose the money! Yeah, I replied, just like I could be scammed over the phone too. No, I didn't lose the money, and probably made a lifelong friend with the proprietor in the process.

I just like my/our way of travel better. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

For those with mobility issues or other limiting health issues, cruises are actually an easy way to continue to travel, Because remember, most of these probably once travelled as you and I do, independently, though I note you did recently take a river cruise. On a cruise to Europe, ship excursions are offered, for a price, and some of them are tailored to those not as mobile as they used to be. These excursions are usually bus tours with just a few brief stops, if any at all, and are well subscribed to.

In May of this year I was on a cruise around the British Isles. There was a man about 60, travelling alone, who was very physically handicapped and walked
only with great difficulty with his walker thingie. It was painful to see him, but he went on an excursion at each port, sometimes in a taxi by himself, sometimes on a tour bus. He wasn’t in any way obnoxious, to use your word, as far as I could tell but he was very gutsy and admirable.

While I agree the mass travel industry stinks and needs to be held
responsible for the impact on destinations, the passengers are
everyday people.

I'm with Mike. I'll chastise the industry and locales which have created so many issues but I won't demonize people who enjoy cruising. It's not my preference but that's not the point: it's not my trip. Whether it's the ease of unpacking just once, convenience of built-in entertainment for all ages or the social opportunities, devoted cruisers have their reasons for choosing this method of travel.

The same might be said about large-group bus tours? It's not the customers' fault that land-tour groups are too large but that the companies won't split them up into more manageable sizes. Comes down to economics, I'm sure, and how they make the packages affordable. Not everyone has the budget for more expensive small-group tours, or the ability or desire to go it alone.

Dunno. I guess as far as tourists and behavior goes, I figure if they're polite and well-behaved at home, they'll be the same when they travel, whether that's by ship, large-group bus, small-group van or on their own, some cultural differences aside? Customary manners in my country may not be the same in someone else's.

(Doug, I think you meant 'restraint'?)

Jay, you're right. The phrase usually uses "restraint", but since a definition of constraint is "repression of one's own feelings, behavior, or action" it could work too.

There were some older passengers and some with mobility issues on our VRC. I was glad to see them out traveling. I also tip my hat to Viking personnel and many of the passengers to do what they could to accommodate their restrictions.

I realize my wife and I have a different travel philosophy that's reflected in other areas of our lives. We tend to be active rather than passive. Florida vacations consist of walking on the beach and sailing rather than going to Disney World. Although we are approaching 70, we averaged walking 10 miles a day on our trip to London and Paris 2 weeks ago. I'm all for folks finding travel methods that appeal to them, but I have to admit I'm annoyed that we have to plan our trips to avoid the thundering hoard of day tripping cruisers. I guess it all works out. It gets us off the well worn tourist path into areas that provide different and equally wonderful experiences.

And you know, Doug, a comment you made before about the high cost of your Viking River Cruise brought something else up.

It's amazing how people just assume that cruises are economical and DIY travel is not. I've found that done right the exact opposite is true. I've been very pleased with setting a budget and working my planning around that. And this is in some fairly pricey cities like Paris, Lucerne, Florence & Rome, without staying in hostels and always having a bathroom in the room where we're staying. (I'm nothing if not modest!)

The phrase 'bang for your buck' keeps coming up whenever I plan my journeys.

I've been very pleased with setting a budget and working my planning around that. And this is in some fairly pricey cities like Paris, Lucerne, Florence & Rome, without staying in hostels and always having a bathroom in the room where we're staying. (I'm nothing if not modest!)

Jay, our wonderful B&B in Paris was 100 euro/night. This included a breakfast consisting of wonderful pastries just purchased. It also included visiting with our hosts over wine and cheese in the evenings. It was a five minute walk to a Metro station.

One thing you pay for on a cruise is the food. The meals on our VRC were fine but not memorable. I'm sure they make up a significant portion of the expense. My wife and I are watching our weight and we normally don't eat three squares like we did on the cruise. When we travel DIY, we usually have the breakfast provided by the B&B and then a nice lunch. We then have a very light meal instead of a typical dinner. Once or twice on a trip we splurge and have something special. We treated our hosts to dinner in Paris with the stipulation they choose a restaurant they loved that was off the beaten path that catered to the neighborhood instead of tourists. I tried escargot for the first time (yummy!) and my wife had an exquisite chestnut soup with truffles. The entrees were French cooking at its best and the wines were superb. I'd rather eat modestly and save up for one memorable meal than eat a succession of adequate but uninspiring meals.

If fine food makes you happy, the Cunard ships will be right up your alley, I mean sea lane, when you are at last too decrepit to gad about on your own. Fine wines are to be had, as well, for a price. On an Atlantic crossing you are 6 days at sea with plenty to do, from excercise classes, lectures, cooking lessons, movies, stage plays, to staying on deck to watch for whales. Hardly any obnoxious people at all usually.

It's amazing how people just assume that cruises are economical and
DIY travel is not.

Jay, I'm just guessing here but the economy piece might play more into, say, Caribbean cruises versus Europe? It may be not so much price as, again, the convenience of unpacking once, lots of social interaction, evening entertainment, etc. The river cruises, especially, are plenty pricey, especially if you factor in an international flight, so I'd guess the budget traveler is going DIY or on large-group escorted tours.

Maybe some of you more familiar with cruises can confirm or deny this but having taken a spin or two through Cruise Critic just to see what it's all about, it seems that dedicated cruisers have a community, much as dedicated RS tour-takers have here? They appear to be interested in "meeting" others via the forum who will be going on the same tour, and some arrange their trips around people they've met on previous cruises and kept in touch with. Anyway, the social piece looked to be a factor for quite a number of posters but I could be wrong.

Interesting, Kath. I have friends that are cruise devotees (although I'm forever trying to woo them over to our side!) that frequent the Cruise Critic website and believe me, they have everything down to the nuts just like we do on this forum. And of course, for divorcees/widow(ers)/singles, it can be a real social boon for them.

My wife and I have been married for 37 years, and these DIY trips (3 so far) are just for us, a getaway from work & family...with a little bit of adventure mixed in, as in 'what do you do when your train route has been cancelled?' We like jumping to Plan B or C if necessary and succeeding. It often ends up being the very thing we talk about to our friends upon our return. And our cruise friends say, OMG, I could never do that!

The corrollary to the 'meeting people at the cruise dinner table' is the B&B for the do-it-yourselfers. You simply don't know what you're going to get at the breakfast table the next morning. We have met some wonderful folks that have turned into great friends, we've met acquaintances, and then we've met the occasional clunker humanoid that you just don't want to spend time with. I'm a bit gregarious and my wife is kinda shy, but she puts up with the occasional B&B stay. It's just another unknown factor of our DIY trip.

I'd like to address pricing.... I priced land v cruise for two itineraries - Alaska and the Baltics. In both cases we ended up on cruises since they were was better price wise. For the Baltics it was a great way to see all the places for the first time and we have visited Copenhagen a couple times now after the cruise. As for seeing St Petersburg - it was the best way for a newbie to Russia to see the city (we overnighted there) and we did meet up with 16 others through Cruise Critic to plan a "non" ship related 2 day tour which was cheaper and customized. We have traveled with 2 of the couples we met since that cruise - both cruise and land.

My wife and I have been married for 37 years, and these DIY trips (3 so far) are just for us, a getaway from work & family...with a little bit of adventure mixed in, as in 'what do you do when your train route has been cancelled?'

Deb and I have been married for 46 years and have been a couple for 51 years. We've never been big party goers and socializing with newfound peers is not high on our agenda when we travel.

We found the group on our VRC was pretty homogenous. Most folks were about our age with similar types of jobs (if not retired) and at about the same income level. We did meet some very nice people at dinner and up on the deck. However, I found being on the cruise pretty insular, with little or no time to interact with the citizens of the area. It was like being invited to a party held in an adjacent suburban subdivision - different faces but folks no different from your neighbors.

Traveling DIY opens up opportunities to spend time with and get to know folks from the area. For instance, we spent a wonderful evening with new found Scottish friends at the Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow. We spent an evening in the kitchen of our remote B&B on the Isle of Mull helping our guest make crab salad and staying warm from his Aga stove. At another B&B we went out to the barn to see the 17 newborn calves. We went pub crawling in Linlithgow with a bride to be and her friends as she raised money for her dowry by selling kisses.

Instead of sitting around the bar on our Viking ship and listening to the piano player run through the standards, we visited a Tuscan abbey and sat with the monks as they worshipped with a Gregorian Chant Vesper service. In other words, we had the kinds of experiences VRC shows in their commercials but you never actually have on a cruise.