2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Ravenna, Italy

Destinations/Ports Series: 2022 Italy Greece Turkey Cruise

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With the over tourism of Venice that led to cruise ships being banned from the port, our embarkation port was moved to Ravenna. First, I want to address the issue of the over tourism of Venice. It is over crowded in the most popular parts of Venice including St. Mark’s Square, the Rialto Bridge and everywhere in between. This definitely detracted from the experience in Venice, especially during the day. So I completely understand the city’s decision to ban the large cruise ships.

Celebrity was able to move their embarkation to Ravenna. It is a two to three hour bus ride from Venice to Ravenna. If you have visited Venice before, you might consider flying into Bologna instead and visiting Ravenna for your pre-cruise stay. Due to a rather complicated history of the town, it is home to some of the most remarkable byzantine mosaics. Certainly worth checking out, but our schedule did not permit us to spend time there.

We boarded our bus at around 9:00 or 9:30 and arrive at the cruise port around 11:30. We drove out of Venice across the causeway and then by the famous Fincantieri ship yard where we saw the brand new Norwegian Prima still under constructions. Due to construction delays, the ship had to cancel it first inaugural cruises this summer.

Once in Ravenna, embarkation was super easy with our express pass and our covid test results. The longest part of the embarkation was queueing up to go through the metal detectors, and even that only took about 10 minutes or less. We were super impressed with the ease of embarkation.

The waterfront area had a marina on one side and white sand beach on the other. In between there was a channel that served the more inland freight port.

Post cruise, disembarking was just as smooth with an early bus to take us back to Venice to catch our flights back home from there.

This entry was posted in My Cruise History

Suzanne Klasen

Suzanne Klasen is the Owner / Travel Advisor of CruiseOne Suzanne Klasen. We have combined our love of cruising with computer skills to bring you a very informative and entertaining site that follows my cruising travels and thoughts. I hope that you will let me help plan your next vacation.