Will Cruise Ships and New Port in 2024 Ruin Ravenna Italy?

Venice doesn’t want cruise ships and their hordes of passengers so now many ships are using Ravenna as a port instead. Those passengers then try to find their way to Venice by bus or train.

I’ve read lots of threads about how to get to/from Venice from Ravenna. Not a lot about what to do in Ravenna. My guess is that people are not spending much time in Ravenna before or after a cruise. They are trying to get to/from Venice. Similar to how people docking in La Spezia just want to get to the Cinque Terre villages.

I made a point of going to Ravenna for the second time in September 2022 because I wanted more time than my first via a day trip from Bologna afforded me and was worried the town would soon be overrun. There was no sign of a problem at the time of my visit. It appears that most of the cruisers manage to get from the port to Venice without going through Ravenna's historic center.

I do think it would be prudent for folks interested in the mosaics to go there sooner rather than later, because surely the word will eventually spread about Ravenna. There's at least a solid two days' worth of stuff to see, and that doesn't include the relatively new historical museum, Classis Ravenna, outside town near the mosaic site Sant'Apollinare in Classe. I didn't manage to get to Classis Ravenna myself, despite having two full days in Ravenna and working hard to see everything on a long target list.

Cruise season in Ravenna starts in May and ends in October. There are like 10 ships per month who stop in Ravenna terminal, so in fact the 60% of days there aren't cruises at all. Is true that during a cruise day the city center will be overcrowded and probably all monuments booked by the groups, but is even true that only few times in a year there are two or three ships in a row.
If you simply avoid the cruise day, Ravenna will crowded as usual.
This is the 2024 cruise calendar: https://www.confesercentiravenna.it/calendario-crociere-2021/

It has been my experience that cruise ships ruin any area where they are allowed to dock.

The last time we were in Rome we took a Walks of Italy Evening Stroll. Our tour guide has worked in Rome for over 30 years. We had an interesting discussion regarding the effects of cruises docking at Civitavecchia. She said that Rome, which was very busy before, had become almost unbearable since cruise ship day trippers showed up. She said it was more than sheer volume of people, that cruise ship day trippers were panicked about seeing what they wanted and making it back to the ship. That makes them very aggressive and rude. My wife and I now purposefully plan our trips to go where we can completely avoid cruise ship passengers, both large cruise ships and river cruise ships.

I live in Georgia and Savannah did an analysis regarding building a port for large cruise ships. They looked at the potential impact, including looking at Charleston, SC, which will not allow large cruise ships to depart from there after 2024. Savannah found the economic impact did not outweigh the projected cost of infrastructure.

I'm surprised that Ravenna is building a new port. I've read reports where other port cities are trying to cut back or even eliminate cruise traffic.

Yogi Berra said, “no one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”.

No one is the non cruisers. Too crowded are the cruisers.
If the cruise ships don’t ruin it by being in town when you are there, they will have ruined it by association. As in ticky tac, same things, higher prices, and a general Disneyfication of where ever it is.
There have go to be a few places in the Med where there are towns you might like that don’t have ships. It is enough to deal with the regular crowds now that the world is open and everyone is trying for the same instagram shot.

I Travel a variety of ways. Sometimes a cruise is one of those ways. It is typical of this forum that oftentimes people who make different travel choices than the person commenting are looked down on.

I propose that there are pros and cons for all methods of travel and each brings both positive and negative impacts to the community visited.

I love seeing people with mobility issues still out and traveling. A cruise is one way they can do this. I love seeing multi-generational groups able to travel together in a logistically practical way. As a bargain hunter, I enjoy being able to visit some places I would not be able to afford otherwise.

Rather than constantly pointing the fingers at others, I propose that each us make it our personal responsibility to be considerate, aware, and thoughtful of our surroundings however we travel.

It seems odd to me that cruise ships would use Ravenna as their port so that the cruisers can go to Venice for the day. That trip is 4 hours by train, with a change (at least the way we went in 2019), one way. Less with connection to high speed, but that would require a reservation. This seems very impractical.

But the vast majority of passengers won't take the train from Ravenna to Venice, they will use the cruise ship excursion buses for the approx. 2 hour and a bit drive (according to Google).
What so many posters on here forget is that provides employment for the local bus drivers, and also for the guides- although I hope that the guide quoted above does not gain work from any of the cruise companies- given the arrogant and dismissive attitudes expressed.
In fact with that kind of attitude I wouldn't use that guide whatever my means of travel.
People like me who don't do cruise excursions generally will research something more local to Ravenna than Venice- using local transportation- again bringing income to local businesses.
Those bus drivers have got more work now the ships are not porting in Venice, so are economically benefiting.

I was in Ravenna in September 2022 for 5 days.
The only “cruisers” I saw were people trying to haul enormous suitcases up the stairs to street level at the train station because the little lift didn’t work.
They were all going to the cruise terminal when we spoke to them.
The town itself was quiet and charming.
We barely heard any other language except Italian being spoken.

I'm surprised that Ravenna is building a new port. I've read reports where other port cities are trying to cut back or even eliminate cruise traffic.

You should consider the kind of destination. From US, Ravenna (and Romagna in general) is not known as perceived like a little and not important destination. For Italians Romagna is the most important beach destination and every Summer are gathered there 4 millions or more tourists (15% foreign tourists).
A ship who dock with 5000 people landing doesn't make a great difference, even if should be one ship every day.
What is very interesting is that Romagna during 20th century was able to create a huge mass tourism system without losing his soul and create a huge network of several little entrepreneurs. Most of the hotel are still family run!

It seems odd to me that cruise ships would use Ravenna as their port so that the cruisers can go to Venice for the day.

Is a Venice problem: the great ships are creating pollution problems inside the "laguna", so they must keep ships outside it. The solution was to build a brand new dock offshore, far from the lagoon, or using an existing one. The two closer are Ravenna and Trieste.
In the last tens of years has been closed all the industrial activities and commerciali ships movement inside the lagoon, not only the cruises.

What so many posters on here forget is that provides employment for the local bus drivers, and also for the guides.

That is true. The most of service providers are local ones: local bus companies, local drivers, local guides. I have several colleagues who work with cruises. Again: remember that there are about 50/60 cruises a year, so a guide cannot work only for cruises: is one of the several guided tours a guide do for his job.
In general cruises groups are not so different from other groups: is easier that in a big group there are more people giving problems (arguing, claiming for some reason and so on): mainly if is a daily tour when a guide hasn't the time to manage that matters. But is part of the guide job. And (from another point of view) is part of the skills of a guide prevent that kind of anxiety.

If you can plan around the cruise schedule, that will help a lot. I agree with the comments that many cruisers won’t stay in Ravenna if they haven’t been to Venice and that many/most will take ship excursions. Too far from the port and too risky for a self-planned day trip. Cruise lines often tout “London, Paris, Rome and Florence” when they actually mean Southampton, Le Havre, Civitavecchia and La Spezia with long day trips most easily accomplished with ship excursions. It works for people trying to see 6 European cities in a week. Just look at European summer cruise itineraries; lots of them do this. I suppose if you only have a 7-10 day vacation it makes sense for them.

I love seeing people with mobility issues still out and traveling. A cruise is one way they can do this. I love seeing multi-generational groups able to travel together in a logistically practical way.

We were invited to join friends on a Viking River Cruise on the Rhine and there were some passengers with mobility issues. You are right, I think it would be hard for them to travel other ways. Rick Steves tours are up front about the physical requirements on their tours. Some were pretty much confined to the ship, but I think they saw enough to make it worth the trip. I realize how lucky we are. We are in our '70s, yet remain active. We just got back from Austria and Slovenia and each day we walked between 10,000 and 20,000 steps.

As a bargain hunter, I enjoy being able to visit some places I would not be able to afford otherwise.

That's an interesting observation. My wife and I are independent travelers. It's easier now than ever to plan and take a trip on your own. We planned a 10 day trip to Tuscany, making all the arrangements. That was one December. We then joined our friends on the VRC I mentioned, that we took in the following July. The trips were the same length. We took tours on both. The VRC cruise cost us THREE TIMES as much as our Tuscany trip and we rented a car in Italy. Our Tuscany room was more modest but much larger and our dinners were much better than the ship food.

@Doug Mac. No bargain hunter would take a Viking River Cruise. There are several other lines that provide far greater value for money. I understand that you were going with friends. Not all cruises are bargains, but there are some out there. Let me give you some examples. 14 day Norway Cruise from Southampton to North Cape and back last summer. I paid $1500 for a solo balcony cabin. By the time I added in taxes, gratuities, and a few shore excursions I was paying around $150/day for lodging, food, transportation, sight-seeing, and entertainment. Norway is not an inexpensive country to visit and I felt that I received good value.

Like all forms of travel, you can book expensive or you can book a more moderately priced trip. I also travel independently sometimes, and sometimes with tour groups. I'm pretty flexible and I find that it gives me more opportunities if I am willing to consider multiple modes of travel.

We’re wondering if the cruise ships will effectively ruin the reason for us to go to Ravenna?

I don't think you will see the same impact that cruise ships have had on some other port cities. There is no doubt that Venice was severely impacted by both damage done by the ships, and the huge numbers of tourists they dumped into the city each time they docked. But when Venice banned the ships, they were spread out amongst at least 3 other ports, thus diluting their effect.

I haven't visited Ravenna since the pandemic, but from what I've read on this site and Cruise Critic, the vast majority of cruisers are only concerned with getting between Venice and the Ravenna cruise terminal as fast as possible. There have been recommendations for people to try to spend time actually in Ravenna, but I haven't seen a lot of enthusiasm for the idea by most of the cruisers. More fool them, but only time will tell if things change for the worse.

Thanks for all the good information. In particular the observation that the cruise ships docking in Ravenna are only there a few days out of the week. Also the link to the port schedule will be useful to plan around (I was not able to find a good schedule in my own internet searches).
I had read that some portion of the tours are going to Ravenna however maybe most go to Venice although given the transit times it must be a short visit.
Thanks again.

@Doug Mac. No bargain hunter would take a Viking River Cruise.

I certainly hope not. The regular fare is bad enough, but when you call to make reservations, they aggressively try to upsell you.

There's not a week that goes by that I don't see several commercials on PBS for VRC. They certainly look seductive. They show fun activities, like strolling through a vineyard or baking with the locals. Notice they never show more than four people in the shot. I hope folks who love PBS and are tempted by these commercials do some research before signing up.

Carol now retired, very good point about not being critical of other people’s travel choices. I remember following your Norway cruise and thinking how great it sounded and being surprised because of preconceived notions of what a cruise would be like.

People who only do independent travel frequently make similar faulty assumptions about the value of group tours and what they are like. Keeping an open mind is a good thing.

People who only do independent travel frequently make similar faulty assumptions about the value of group tours and what they are like. Keeping an open mind is a good thing.

People who only do group tours are just as likely to have faulty assumptions of independent travel and those who prefer it.

My wife and I have done several group tours, the last one being last month to Austria and Slovenia. We've enjoyed the group tours we've taken, we just prefer independent travel which we do most of the time. In this age of the internet, it is a lot easier than it used to be to make arrangements ourselves. We are also lucky we've hit many of the most popular destinations and can now concentrate on out of the way places where the emphasis is on ambience instead of seeing the big sites.

No matter how you choose to do it, I'm in firm agreement with Mark Twain when he said: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”