Transportation

[Ray Bunyan]

We are currently booked on Explorer of the seas in October 2023 from Venice ( Ravenna ). I was told by my TA that Royal will not allow me to purchase a transfer form Marco Polo airport to the cruise port in Ravenna. We are staying in Venice a few days before the cruise and we wanted to purchase transfers form the airport to the ship.  I have been quoted $600.00 + for a car service to get us to tthe pier which soulds like a bit much. 

Any suggestions  would be appreciated.

[SpeedNoodles]

There have been lots of threads about this, so while you're waiting for any additional advice, just do a search here for "Ravenna". Hopefully you'll find some good advice!

[teddy]

I've been researching this quite a bit.  We're cruising from Ravenna in October 2023.  Our plans are to fly into Venice and take the train to Ravenna.  It's about three hours and has one change in Ferrara.  Currently around 30 Euros. 

 

Here are some links to conversations about getting to Ravenna:

 

 

 

[teddy]

An alternative is to fly into Bologna.  The train is cheaper and a straight shot to Ravenna with no changes required.  Our original plan was to fly into Bologna, but flights to Venice were substantially cheaper.

[paulcop]

SpeedNoodles has good advice above to search "Ravenna" for earlier posts on the Venice to Ravenna logistics. Did it twice this year--with Azamara and Celebrity. Assume your RCL experience will be just as tedious.  You can't efficiently take a train from Venice to Ravenna--the schedule details will show you why.  My latest (October) bus ride effectively wasted my whole day--queue in Venice for 11:00 bus at 10:30, arrive at pier-side 2:15, wait in bus for an hour (long bus queue ahead of you), 3:15 another line outside the bus (in the sunshine, but free water!) for 45 minutes, 4:00 proceed through screening (just 3 detectors for 2000+ passengers!), 4:30 arrive on board. Another detail not mentioned in the blogs is the Japanese-style "restroom" stop on the bus-ride--practice your squats ahead of time! and BYO paper! As delightful as Venice is, I will never do another Ravenna departure. Hint for return--get a RCL transfer for bus to Bologna train station. It was a quick (1hr+) ride, took a high-speed train to Milan arriving around noon. On my second trip I used one-stop flights US to Milan's close-in airport (Linate-LIN)--was cheaper than other Italy destinations, and it's a delightful non-huge airport. Milan's central railway station (less than 5 miles from LIN) is also just 2+ hours from Venice--but buy your tickets ahead of time or pay double.  Italy is great--but figuring out the details takes some work.

[JDH]

On 12/15/2022 at 12:34 PM, Ray Bunyan said:

We are currently booked on Explorer of the seas in October 2023 from Venice ( Ravenna ). I was told by my TA that Royal will not allow me to purchase a transfer form Marco Polo airport to the cruise port in Ravenna. We are staying in Venice a few days before the cruise and we wanted to purchase transfers form the airport to the ship.  I have been quoted $600.00 + for a car service to get us to tthe pier which soulds like a bit much. 

Any suggestions  would be appreciated.

That is false or at least different for my case, I'm going on a same cruise as yours just in July (2023) and I arrive a day before my embarkation, just spoke to a TA (AIR2SEA 1-800-327-6700) and was able to book a shuttle from Venice Marco Polo Airport to the pier (embarkation day). It was $45 per person and will be added to your cruise price. He also provided me different location which was Venice Terminal in Tronchetto (Venice Island), but the hotel that I got was closer to the airport.

Please let me know if you have any more questions!

[Va4fam]

We hired a private driver from Venice to Ravenna for half of what you were quoted.  Economical, made a pit stop for us at halfway point, and got us to cruise terminal right on time.