Brilliance of the Seas Trieste Embarkation, Not Ravenna

Published on Dec 30, 2025, 3:23 pm CST

5 min read

Key points

Royal Caribbean moved the Aug 10, 2026 Brilliance of the Seas embarkation from Ravenna to Trieste
The line cited a construction delay that created a berthing conflict in Ravenna
The 7 night itinerary otherwise stays intact, ending in Rome (Civitavecchia) with Adriatic calls
Royal Caribbean told booked guests it will reimburse certain non refundable transportation changes, up to $200.00 (USD) domestic or $400.00 (USD) international per guest
Travel plans built around Ravenna and Bologna now carry higher same day misconnect risk and likely need new airport and hotel choices

Impact

Best Arrival Airports: Trieste Friuli Venezia Giulia Airport (TRS) is the closest airport option, while Venice Marco Polo International Airport (VCE) and Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU) can work with longer transfers
Connections And Misconnect Risk: Same day arrivals become riskier if your flights and ground plans were built around Ravenna or Bologna, because you are now stitching in a longer overland move to Trieste
Transfers And Hotels: Expect demand to shift toward Trieste hotels and transfer providers, and away from Ravenna and the Bologna corridor for this sailing
What Travelers Should Do Now: Reprice flights into TRS, VCE, or LJU, then lock a transfer plan that matches your risk tolerance before peak summer inventory tightens
Claims And Receipts: If you change non refundable transport, keep receipts and the line's written notice so you can pursue the reimbursement pathway described to booked guests

Royal Caribbean changed where Brilliance of the Seas begins a specific Adriatic sailing, moving embarkation from Ravenna, Italy to Trieste, Italy. Passengers booked on the August 10, 2026 departure are the ones affected, especially anyone who already aligned flights, hotels, and transfers around Ravenna or Bologna. The practical next step is to rework your arrival airport and transfer plan to Trieste, or to add a pre cruise night that makes the longer ground move less brittle.

The Brilliance of the Seas Trieste embarkation change matters because the ship now departs Trieste on August 10, 2026 at 8:00 p.m., and that single swap can break otherwise sound planning when flights, rail, and hotels were purchased around Ravenna's geography.

Royal Caribbean told booked guests that a construction delay led to a berthing conflict in Ravenna, and that the sailing will begin in Trieste instead. Cruise Industry News reported the line will reimburse certain non refundable, pre purchased transportation changes, such as flights, train tickets, and rental cars, up to $200.00 (USD) per guest for domestic changes and up to $400.00 (USD) per guest for international changes.

Who Is Affected

This change is narrowly scoped to the Brilliance of the Seas cruise that now lists Trieste as Day 1 on August 10, 2026, with the rest of the itinerary continuing through Adriatic ports and ending in Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy on August 17, 2026.

The most exposed travelers are those who built pre cruise time around Ravenna, Italy, or who planned airport arrivals based on Ravenna's typical access points. Royal Caribbean's own Port of Ravenna guidance pegs Venice Marco Polo International Airport (VCE) at about 2 hours and 30 minutes by car, or about 3 hours by bus, and Bologna Guglielmo Marconi International Airport (BLQ) at about 1 hour and 30 minutes to the pier at Porto Corsini. Those numbers do not translate cleanly to Trieste, and if you keep them unchanged, you are implicitly accepting a longer, more failure prone transfer chain on embarkation day.

Travelers who were planning a Venice focused pre stay should also treat this as more than a cosmetic port swap. Trieste is a different corner of northern Italy, closer to Slovenia, and the cruise port sits next to central Trieste landmarks, which can simplify last mile logistics once you are in the city, but it can also reshape where a one night buffer makes the most sense.

What Travelers Should Do

First, identify what you already bought that is anchored to Ravenna, such as non refundable hotels in Emilia Romagna, a car rental pickup near Bologna, or a private transfer quoted to Porto Corsini. If you can still change flights without heavy penalties, reprice arrival into Trieste Friuli Venezia Giulia Airport (TRS) first, then compare Venice Marco Polo (VCE) and Ljubljana Jože Pučnik (LJU) as backups. From TRS, public transport options into Trieste run frequently, with Rome2rio listing a train to Trieste Centrale at about 32 minutes, which is the kind of short, repeatable link that reduces missed boarding risk.

Second, set a clear threshold for same day arrival versus arriving the day before. If your plan requires an international flight, plus baggage claim, plus a two hour class ground transfer from a distant airport, you are building a chain where a single delay can cascade into a missed ship, especially in peak August congestion. If you cannot arrive into TRS, or you are forced to connect through a high delay prone hub, treat a Trieste overnight as the default, then move back to same day only if you can land early morning and still have multiple later transfer options available.

Third, monitor what Royal Caribbean issues over the next 24 to 72 hours in traveler terms, even though the sailing is far out. Watch for updated "Arrival" guidance in Cruise Planner, changes to offered line transfers, and any clarified documentation on the reimbursement process that Cruise Industry News summarized from the guest statement. Save the notice, and keep all receipts for any transportation changes you make, because the reimbursement language described to booked guests is only useful if you can document what became non refundable due to the port swap.

Background

Homeport changes are operational decisions that ripple outward because cruises are timed around ship provisioning, security screening, local pilotage, and a tight schedule for loading baggage and boarding thousands of passengers. When a port cannot guarantee a berth, whether due to construction, conflicts, or other constraints, the cruise line's priority is to protect the sailing itself by moving the start point, while keeping the day by day itinerary and final disembarkation as intact as possible.

For travelers, the first order effect is logistical, because your airport choice, transfer time, and hotel placement were likely optimized for Ravenna and Bologna. The second order effects spread quickly across the system: transfer providers and hotels that serve Trieste see a demand spike for a single date, rail itineraries built around Bologna or Ravenna become less relevant, and flight shopping behavior shifts toward airports that feed northeast Italy and nearby Slovenia. Even travelers who planned to visit Venice can feel this, because a pre stay in Venice followed by an embarkation in Trieste requires a deliberate transfer plan rather than a short hop to the Ravenna cruise terminal corridor.

Royal Caribbean has not publicly framed this as a broader Adriatic deployment change, and the itinerary listed for August 10, 2026 still shows the cruise departing Trieste and running through the Adriatic before ending in Rome (Civitavecchia). That is useful, because it means most excursions and intermediate port planning remain stable, but your critical path, getting to the ship on Day 1, is what needs to be rebuilt.