Venice on a high volume cruise ship day(s) & regatta

You should be fine visiting Murano, Burano, and Torcello, despite the cruisers. It's a several-hour excursion, the best place to catch the vaporetto there would be the Fondamenta Nuove stop on the north side of the Cannaregio district, which doesn't seem to get at all crowded, and in general, I would say your surmise that the cruisers mostly congregate around San Marco is accurate. The best way to see that area minus the hordes would be early morning or evening. How exciting that you'll get to see the regatta!

Edited to add that you might want to leave for the islands early in the a.m. and head for Torcello or Burano first, then get to Murano later when the glass enterprises are open. When you're at the vaporetto dock on Burano, you can walk a short causeway over to Mazzorbo, which is very quiet and agricultural.

Also, as long as you still have your vaporetto pass, you can go over to San Giorgio, across from San Marco, where you can see the beautiful church and interesting modern art, and take the elevator up the bell tower for incredible views.

We were there during the regatta last year. Unfortunately, I've only been in Venice one day of my life, so I can't say if the city was any crazier that day, but it didn't seem overwhelmingly busy to me. The main thing is that they do close down the Grand Canal for several hours that day, so if you're hoping to take the vaporetto down the Grand Canal (along with Rick's free audiotour), you'll have to be intentional about the timing of that.

Christy,

I was back in Venice again last September, and my impression was that it was a LOT more crowded than my previous visit a few years earlier. Many of the crowds in mid-day seemed to be from the cruise ships, as they were all wearing "Whisper Headsets" and all clinging together around an umbrella-toting guide.

While a few of the cruisers may decide to go to Murano, Burano or Torcello, I wouldn't expect too many. Most of them will likely take excursions offered by the cruise firm and stay pretty close to the main sights around San Marco. The cruisers usually have a time limit so will be gone by late afternoon so it should be quieter then. During the busy part of the day, I've found that if you venture into the smaller side streets away from San Marco, it's possible to find some tranquility.

As with the Cinque Terre, if you get out of town during the peak part of the day, you shouldn't have many problems with the hordes. On the day when 11K cruisers will descend on Venice, you could always take a day trip to Padova as that's a very pleasant location with some interesting sights.

Oh, and I'm assuming you already know this since it sounds like you have been to Venice before, but St. Mark's does have skip-the-line tickets that you can buy for a couple euros. Sounds like that might come in handy if that is a place you guys are going to try to see.

Christy,

I was in Venice a few weeks ago and did what Ken suggested and took a day trip to Padova on the day there were 9K cruise ship visitors expected in Venice. On another busy day, I went to Burano, Murano, and Torcello. I went to Tocello first and by the time I arrived on Burano, it was very crowded. In hindsight, I should have left earlier, visited Burano first, Torcello second (had a wonderful lunch in one of the upscale restaurants (splurge!) with a garden), then finished the day on Murano.

My 2 cents,

Sharon

The regatta is a lot of fun, we really enjoyed it. They bring out some really fancy and decorated gondolas and race down the Grand Canal so you see different boats than are out on a normal day. Some restaurants that have good views of the Grand Canal will let you make reservations for lunch and then you can stay as long as you want and watch the regatta. We just staked out seats near the Rialto bridge and watched from there. People will start claiming seats early so there was definitely some waiting around just killing time. I think there is some area where you can also pay for reserved seats but I do not know how difficult they are to get.

Thanks all for the replies. I got busy at work and did not check back until yesterday. All good advice.

We are taking a ferry from Rovinj and will be there by 11am. So we will have that day, plus 2 more full days. May take your advice and go to Padova for a day trip. That is a great possibility.

Sharon -- good suggestion about the order of operations of the locations (burano, torcello and then murano) :) I will take that into account.

Follow Up question: I also like the suggestion on getting a lunch reservation to watch the regatta. Any good ideas where? I assume it would be pricey places since they are along the Grand Canal - but there may be some hidden gems :)

Thanks!

Is there a website that show which cruise ships will be in a specific port like Venice on any given day?

You can get a PDF of the scheduled arrivals and departures here:

http://www.vtp.it/calendario-approdi/