Cruises From Venice

Venice is the least settled embarkation port we cover. Start there. Since August 2021, Italian regulation has banned ships over 25,000 gross tons from the Giudecca Canal and St. Mark's Basin — the route past St. Mark's Square that made Venice one of the world's most photographed cruise departures. That ban followed years of protest over over-tourism, environmental damage, a 2019 collision between a cruise ship and a riverboat, and the city's ongoing flooding problems.

Large ships haven't stopped sailing “from Venice” — they've relocated. MSC still checks you in at Venezia Marittima, the old terminal by Piazzale Roma, then ferries you to the ship at Marghera, per MSC. The port's temporary big-ship berths are Lombardia and Liguria at Marghera, Fusina, which opened in August 2024, and Chioggia, per the government commissioner. Many cruises marketed “from Venice” actually start in Ravenna, about 2 hours 30 minutes south per Celebrity, or Trieste, about 150 km from Marco Polo airport per Holland America.

Ships under 25,000 GT are the exception: they can still come in through the lagoon. VTP, the terminal operator, told the trade paper Shipping Italy in March 2026 that San Basilio and Marittima stay in use for them. That's a press report, not VTP's own page, so check your documents. If a small-ship line is what you're booking, that changes almost everything else on this page.

This page describes the system as rechecked on October 3, 2026 against the cruise lines' own pages and the government commissioner's site; where those sources disagree, we say so rather than smoothing it into false certainty. Treat it as a starting point, and confirm the specifics directly with your cruise line before finalizing any travel plans.

Venice sails the Adriatic first. Some itineraries keep going to the Greek Isles and finish in Athens instead of coming back, and Viking sells that run both ways. Athens (Piraeus) is an embarkation port in its own right, so its card opens our Piraeus guide. The other six have port pages of their own: Dubrovnik, Kotor, Split, Corfu, Katakolon and Santorini.

Common, not guaranteed. Port order changes by line, ship and season. Read your own itinerary, not the pattern below.

Not covered above: Venice is also a well-known port of call for cruises homeported elsewhere in the Adriatic and Eastern Mediterranean — that relationship runs both ways, and isn't repeated here to avoid double-counting.

Venice's cruise terminal picture is still moving, and this section says so plainly rather than presenting a tidy structure that doesn't exist. Ships over 25,000 GT must now come in through the Malamocco inlet to temporary berths, per the government commissioner: Lombardia and Liguria at Marghera, Fusina, and Isola Saloni at Chioggia. Venezia Marittima, by Piazzale Roma, still handles MSC's check-in and bags before a ferry out to Marghera. A permanent terminal on the Canale Nord at Marghera is planned — the port said in July 2024 that its first two berths would be ready for the 2027 season, a plan, not a promise. Several big lines skip the lagoon entirely — they sail “from Venice” out of Ravenna or Trieste, not Venice.

Third-party guides still disagree on which line uses which berth, and some of them are years out of date. We went to the lines’ own pages instead, and the table below follows them. Your boarding documents outrank all of it, so check them before you book a hotel or a transfer.

Two options are on record for a Marittima check-in. Highly volatile

VTP, the terminal operator, runs parking for cruise passengers inside the port area at Marittima. You book and prepay on its own site, parcheggi.vtp.it, and the form works out the fare from your ship and dates. We couldn't confirm a price, so get yours there. It covers Marittima only; a Fusina, Chioggia, Trieste or Ravenna sailing has its own arrangements, so check your line's departure details.

The city's Autorimessa Comunale (AVM) at Piazzale Roma charges €35 per 24 hours for cars up to 2.20 m on its own page, read October 3, 2026 — the €20 a day we printed before came from a general guide and is out of date.

Two airports, Marco Polo and Treviso, and which terminal you're headed to changes the trip — confirm it before you book ground transport.

The night before, ranked: we’ve scored twenty hotels for the night before a Venice cruise, from Piazzale Roma by the People Mover to Mestre and the airport, on what each one publishes. They’re ranked for Marittima and Fusina; sailing from Ravenna or Trieste, read the airport page first. Four worth knowing: