Community residents believe much of their oceanfront will be paved over for a cruise dock.
Plans for a new cruise pier in the Italian community of Fiumicino are receiving pushback from local residents.
Royal Caribbean plans to build a cruise pier with enough capacity to accommodate one of the company’s Oasis Class ships, which can accommodate 5,400 passengers, in a project that will significantly change the waterfront of the town of Isola Sacra. The larger surrounding community of Fiumicino is the home of Rome’s international airport and is 20 miles from the city center. The project would be Italy’s first large privately managed tourist port—a contrast to the existing tourist ports which are operated by government or para-government port authorities.
From Royal Caribbean’s perspective, the area is an ideal location for a cruise port. The existing cruise port for Rome is in Civitavecchia, 40 miles away from both Rome and the airport. Once the new port in Fiumicino is finished, trips to or from Rome Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino—virtually next door to the port project—will take just minutes, compared to the nearly hour-long transfer in a bus or train today.
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Civitavecchia is Rome’s primary cruise, ferry, and cargo port. Its distance from the city of Rome and the airport makes it slightly less competitive as an origin or destination port than competing ports in Barcelona.
The project will significantly alter the landscape in an area currently occupied by beaches, fishing boat berths, and picturesque seaside houses built on stilts. Developers say that the addition of the cruise port will bring jobs and tourism revenue to the community, but some community residents believe the majority of cruise passengers will bypass the city en route to Rome or the airport, leaving them with much of their oceanfront paved over for a cruise dock.
The ocean at Fiumicino is also shallow, meaning that millions of cubic feet of underwater sand will have to be dredged.
A previously proposed port project included the addition of a breakwater that altered tides and currents, which contributed to coastal erosion on the surrounding beaches. The addition of the breakwater also altered the viability of the marine environment of the region to sea life like shellfish and octopus. There’s fear that further development would pile on additional detrimental effects to the environment.
A local opposition group called Collectivo No Porto (“No Port Collective”) also has concerns that the project would extend the existing breakwater and a significant portion of the coastline would have to be paved over to accommodate new berths to house the fishing fleet displaced by the construction of the new cruise pier. The group also dislikes the fact that Royal Caribbean has purchased the land for the project outright, instead of berthing at a port that is operated as a public convenience.
A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean told The Guardian the estimated local jobs number would be around 5,000 once construction of the port is complete. The spokesperson also noted that the new construction would allow the cruise line to implement the latest environmental technologies to reduce pollution while in port. Instead of sitting in port with their powerplants running, burning fuel oil, ships would connect to cleaner shore power.
Royal Caribbean will deploy six ships to Europe for the Summer 2025 season, operating from five homeports, including two in Italy: Rome (Civitavecchia) and Ravenna. Odyssey of the Seas will homeport in Civitavecchia, while Voyager of the Seas will begin and end some cruises at Civitavecchia. The Guardian reports Royal Caribbean plans to have some ships call at Fiumicino this summer, prior to completion of the project, tendering passengers ashore from ships anchored off the coast.
Royal Caribbean is not yet advertising port calls to the city.
