Odyssey of the Seas Guests Told to Avoid Piazza Garibaldi During Naples Protests
If you were on Odyssey of the Seas' 7-night Greek Isles and Italy sailing, the Naples call on Saturday, October 24 is done, and the ship left on schedule. For future Italian port days, read any stateroom letter closely, avoid the area it names, and allow ample time to get back to the pier before departure. A Royal Caribbean shore excursion carried a guaranteed return to the ship. If you are booked on the October 25 transatlantic crossing to Cape Liberty, nothing in the article suggests a change.
My read is that this is a case of the system working as designed. Royal Caribbean put a letter in staterooms on Friday, October 23, pointed guests away from Piazza Garibaldi, and told them to leave time to get back, and Odyssey of the Seas still sailed from Naples on time. The ironic twist is that protests were also reported in Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologna and Florence, and Euronews describes clashes with police in several cities, yet the ship's 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. call went ahead without incident. P&O's Iona, by contrast, skipped Le Havre on October 18, so unrest does cost some itineraries. The winners are excursion buyers, whose return to the ship was guaranteed, while independent explorers carry the timing risk. In their shoes, I would book the ship's tour or stay well clear of the station area in the afternoon. I would also keep the timing buffer, since a roughly mile-and-a-half trip back to the pier is easy to underestimate when traffic is disrupted.