ABOVE: The AC Hotel Venezia by Marriott has an entrance directly on the transportation hub of Piazzale Roma, but its guestrooms face a quiet side street, an attractive interior courtyard, or this traditional Venetian canal.

We're often asked what hotels are most convenient to Venice's cruise port, especially when passengers are traveling with heavy luggage or would like to avoid long walks over multiple footbridges.

The answer is "It depends." Venice has two sets of cruise terminals:

• Marittima is the main cruise basin. It serves all larger ships, such as those of Costa, MSC, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean. Depending on how busy the port is, it also may be used for small and medium-size vessels.
  
  
• San Basilio and its neighboring pier of Santa Marta are used by small ships, the occasional mid-size ship, river vessels (such as Uniworld's River Countess and CroisiEurope's Michelangelo), and hydrofoils to Croatia.

If your ship departs or arrives at Marittima, you'll probably want to stay on or near the Piazzale Roma, which is the land-transportation hub for Venice with airport buses, taxis, and the People Mover automated tram to both the Marittima cruise basin and the Tronchetto parking garages.

If your ship departs or arrives at San Basilio or Santa Marta, you may want to stay in the vicinity of those piers.

For current listings of hotels near Marittima and San Basilio/Santa Marta, we recommend looking at "17 Hotels Closest to Cruise Ships" guide on our main Venice for Visitors site. This newly-expanded guide describes 10 hotels that are extremely close to Marittima plus seven that are within easy walking distance of San Basilio and Santa Marta.

Each listing includes a photo, a link to the hotel's individual map and directions page at VeniceHotelDirections.com, and guest ratings from Booking.com.

The article also has Piazzale Roma and San Basilio maps that show the locations of all 17 hotels.

As a bonus, you'll find a secondary page with nine more hotels that are worth considering if you don't mind a slightly longer walk.

To get started, see:

• 17 Hotels Closest to Cruise Ships

For even more Venice cruise information, go to:

• Venice for Cruisers

BELOW: The Hotel San Sebastiano Garden is a short walk from the San Basilio cruise terminal.