Flight Change -- port to Venice airport

[CruisingGiants]

I was wondering if anyone had advice on how early to get to the Venice airport. Unfortunately my airline called yesterday and told me my original flight had been changed by a few hours to 8 a.m.! They said I could keep that time or switch to 11:45 p.m., with a 10 hour layover in London -- this doesn't sound appealing, and we really do need to be home the day we planned. I wish we could stay longer though, we love Venice :)

 

Anyhow -- our ship is arriving in port the day before, so we'll already be there, but is 8 a.m. too early for a flight? I was thinking if we left the port by 6 a.m. that would be enough time to drive there and get checked in.

 

Do cruise ships let passengers disembark that early? I've never tried it. For safety reasons I figure we'll book a transfer through the cruise line.

 

Thanks for the help!

[mapleleaves]

Where are you flying to?

Assuming it's to the States you should be INSIDE the airport at 6am when the gates open. Doesn't your airline advise you to check-in 2 hrs prior for an int'l departure? Sometimes 3hrs. We arrived 2 hrs prior to our flight to Spain and we barely made it. Arrived at 9:30am for a noon flight and had 10 minutes to spare.

It's only a 20 minute taxi ride to the airport from Piazzale Roma, about 45E.

[CruisingGiants]

Where are you flying to?

Assuming it's to the States you should be INSIDE the airport at 6am when the gates open. Doesn't your airline advise you to check-in 2 hrs prior for an int'l departure? Sometimes 3hrs. We arrived 2 hrs prior to our flight to Spain and we barely made it. Arrived at 9:30am for a noon flight and had 10 minutes to spare.

It's only a 20 minute taxi ride to the airport from Piazzale Roma, about 45E.

 

All the airline info I have says I need to check luggage in no later than 60 minutes before the flight departs on international flights, but you're probably right -- the more time, the better.

 

Is Piazzale Roma the cruise port? Do you think taxis will be outside or should we book one ahead of time?

 

Thanks for the response!

[euro cruiser]

You should absolutely book a cab ahead of time, the odds of cabs waiting at the cruise port that early in the morning are slim to none. There are generally cabs available 24 hours a day at Piazzale Roma, but that's three quarters of a mile away and not much help.

 

Two hours ahead should be sufficient for a flight departing from Venice. It's unlikely that you will need to clear immigation at Venice, as there are very few flights that go directly to the States. Odds are you have a stop elsewhere within the Schengen zone and will go through passport control there.

[mapleleaves]

you mentioned that your ship was arriving the PREVIOUS day so I assumed you were staying in Venice that last night. However, if you're overnighting on the ship, definitely take eurocruisers advice and reserve a taxi. Even if there are taxis at the pier, you won't be the only passenger needing to get to the airport for an early morning flight.

 

(BTW, our noon flight was to JFK. If we had arrived to the airport at 10am we would have missed it).

[CruisingGiants]

you mentioned that your ship was arriving the PREVIOUS day so I assumed you were staying in Venice that last night. However, if you're overnighting on the ship, definitely take eurocruisers advice and reserve a taxi. Even if there are taxis at the pier, you won't be the only passenger needing to get to the airport for an early morning flight.

 

(BTW, our noon flight was to JFK. If we had arrived to the airport at 10am we would have missed it).

 

I think we'll definitely go ahead and book a transfer with our cruise line -- just in case. It's a tad expensive, but worth it I think.

 

Also, why did it take so long at the airport? We've flown internationally and I haven't experienced a problem yet. How early do you recommend getting there? If we leave by 5:30, do you think that would be enough time? Get there by 6 -- leave at 8?

 

I really appreciate everybody's help!

[paul929207]

We flew home from Venice last month. We took a cruise line excursion. We left the ship at 10:00am for a 12:40pm flight. We barely made it. The Venice airport was a total disaster. I would be at the door when they open at 6am.

[euro cruiser]

Building on Paul's experience, I should have been clear in my earlier post that two hours prior should be sufficient for an early morning flight. Venice is, from my experience, one of the worst managed airports in the developed world; that said, arriving any earlier for your flight would likely only result in added frustration as they won't have personnel at the check in desks more than two hours before a "domestic" (within the Schengen area) flight.

[mapleleaves]

If I remember correctly, the ticket counters/gates don't open until 6am so not point in arriving earlier. I imagine it will be very busy tho, filled with all the passengers whose flights depart between 7 and 9am.

Our flights out of Venice were 2 weeks apart, both at midweek which I thought might be quieter. For each flight we noticed only 1 or 2 agents were working at the counter but there were 200 passengers in every line. At the last minute they added 2 more agents and the line moved very fast but you still had to get thru security and to the gate. There didn't seem to be any sense of urgency.

(I just looked at the Marco Polo web site and it says to arrive AT LEAST 2 hrs prior)

[euro cruiser]

One other observation about early morning at Marco Polo; with hundreds of people waiting to either check in, get through security, or sitting at gates there was no place open to buy coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker, so I didn't notice until the natives (the rest of my family) started getting restless and complaining. Sometime around 7 AM a coffee shop finally opened and they were mobbed the minute they did.

[CruisingGiants]

One other observation about early morning at Marco Polo; with hundreds of people waiting to either check in, get through security, or sitting at gates there was no place open to buy coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker, so I didn't notice until the natives (the rest of my family) started getting restless and complaining. Sometime around 7 AM a coffee shop finally opened and they were mobbed the minute they did.

 

Haha -- thanks for the tip! We're not coffee drinkers either, but we'll have to be on the lookout for those cranky folks needing their morning caffeine fix :)

 

Venice sounds like it needs to get more people working there to help handle the crowds. I appreciate the tips and will definitely be there by the time the gates open.

[paul929207]

Be sure to print off your boarding passes before leaving the ship. I don't know what your cruise ship offers for print, but it will be one less mass of people to deal with. Note I said mass of people, not line. There really aren't lines at the airport, just hundreds of people edging there way to the next stop in the process.

[CruisingGiants]

Be sure to print off your boarding passes before leaving the ship. I don't know what your cruise ship offers for print, but it will be one less mass of people to deal with. Note I said mass of people, not line. There really aren't lines at the airport, just hundreds of people edging there way to the next stop in the process.

 

 

Thank you, that is excellent advice!

[euro cruiser]

Do you need a boarding pass? I never have one and it's never been an issue, I just get in the line for my flight and hand over my passport, then they hand me a boarding pass.

[Cruise Junky]

We just did this for a 9:00 am flight. We used Princess's transfer, I think it was $50 pp. The airport was pretty dead at that time

[Hlitner]

Since your ship is overnighting in Venice there should be no problem with that early flight. However, you should consider pre-arranging for a land taxi (or other private car/driver) to transfer you from the port since you will not normally find taxis sitting at the port at such an early hour. As to getting to the airport at 6am....well the last time we went to Marco Polo at that hour none of the airline ticket counters was even functioning. Although getting to an airport 3 hours early is the standard for international flights you will probably find that your airline counter does not even open much before 7.

 

Hank

[dogs4fun]

We arrived at the airport at 6:00 am for a 7:30 am flight. The airport was pretty dead at 6:00 am. There were no agents at the counter until 6:30 am. We had no problem making our flight to Frankfurt.